I like to watch t.v. I watch it for entertainment value as well as educational consumption. I like it because it gets my creative juices flowing. It allows me to expand my mind and imagination, to be able to branch off into so many different avenues of awareness.
Today, I chanced upon a show on the family channel. I write children's stories so I do tune in to keep abreast of the current attitudes and interests of the younger generation. This movie was about a group of teenagers who were having a hard time getting into the music industry due the the fact their own group had no flair. One of the lads was a science buff who enjoyed dabbling in the art of artificial intelligence. Now, being the day and age it is today, that meant a holigram. Any Star Trek buffs out there know that that is a creation of artificial intelligence with the concept of energy and not mass.
Now, through this holigrams design who was perfect in every way, the young man learned that sometimes to be imperfect but real was more important than to be perfect and only surreal.
Simple concept. Yet we as humans, tend to totally miss the obvious sometimes in our quest to be perfect or skip over the mistakes. The end result of the movie was the young man realized that the true girl of his "dreams" was his best friend who had always been there. Although this holigram had learned to grow and develop on her own, formed a consciousness of herself, she couldn't feel and in the end chose not to exist even in her "perfect" state if she could never fully "be".
This article came across my path today and I thought that although it is a little more scientific than I was thinking, it held the same kind of idea I was pondering. I hope it helps you to expand your mind and enjoy the opportunity to branch out yet again on another avenue of consciousness.
Consciousness: Mind and Machine
Copyright 2005 Eldon Taylor
A popular idea now-a-days is the notion of the ghost in the
machine. From scientific articles to entertainment, this
reference is to the idea of consciousness. Once again, the
study of consciousness is occupying the minds of science
and science fiction.
Just after the turn of the century, science basically
abandoned the study of consciousness per se' on the grounds
that it was too ambiguous and non-quantifiable. However,
the development of artificial intelligence, so-called
thinking computers, interactive virtual reality
environments and non-local action, or action at a distance,
has placed the study of consciousness in the fore front of
many minds.
What is consciousness? This issue is devoted to some of the
intrigue involved in efforts to create "thinking machines"
modeled after man, minus of course, his limitations.
EARLY TALK
Language is often thought to be the tool of consciousness
and evidence for the kind of consciousness that makes man
different from monkeys. Indeed, language has often been
referred to as the "jewel of cognition." Some scientists
have argued that Neanderthal man possessed advanced talking
ability. This assertion is largely based upon a neck bone
found in 1988 (SN: 4/24/93, p.262). Other scientists argue
for a more recent origin to speech. Recent in this sense is
between 50 and 100 thousand years ago. By contrast, early
origin theorists date the beginning of language at over 2
million years ago.
The evolution and history of language has a bearing on
certain philosophical issues where consciousness is
concerned. For example, take any date for the first
appearance of language. Let's for fun just assume some
hairy bi-pedal creature that has never spoken. Is this
creature conscious? Conscious in the sense of man? Now one
day the creature utters some meaningful form of speech. Not
a grunt or guttural sound like all animals, but some form,
beginning, of speech. Is the animal now conscious?
What is the difference between the consciousness of animals
and man? What is intended by distinguishing between the two
conscious forms as different and why? If a primate species
shows the ability to learn, remember and associate
learnings, some insist this is evidence for reason. Most
flatly refuse to recognize it as such. Is it possible that
by recognizing the field of consciousness as one worthy and
ripe for study, that mans' consciousness will lose its
unique elevated status? What precisely is it that one means
by consciousness anyway?
Certainly reason preceded language. It would be rather odd
if it were the other way around. Still, that's an
interesting thought.
Some seem to reason only with the tools of their language.
In other words, their reason is limited by the rules and
definitions of their language. Plus, there is some argument
in favor of certain language structure as having greater or
lesser faculties for developing logical thinking. Literal
languages, for example, such as German, tend to encourage
the development of logical thinkers. However intriguing all
this may be, it still stands to reason that reason preceded
the conceptualization and development of speech. As such,
one is hard pressed to limit the consciousness of a species
on the basis of sound patterns called speech.
Oh, and it gets still tougher. For there are sound patterns
that resemble speech uttered by so-called non-conscious
animals such as whales and dolphins. So, what is
consciousness?
Is consciousness a matter of wakefulness? No, it can't be
just that for one can be a conscious being and still be
asleep. Is consciousness memory? Well, according to the
experiments of Cleve Baxter, plants exhibit memory. Where
science abandoned the study of consciousness years ago, the
problems inherent to describing consciousness have
proliferated during the absence. The advent of animal
studies, plant studies and synthetic or artificial
intelligence have greatly complicated the matters of
consciousness. Or perhaps, in the alternative, simplified
them.
LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN
For most people, parts of the left brain handle the affairs
of language. Brain hemispheric studies including the now
popular Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans show that
the right ear sends acoustic information to the left
hemisphere. Well, according to Marc Hauser of Harvard
University and Karin Andersson of Radcliff College in
Cambridge, rhesus monkeys "display a similar cerebral
setup, with the left half of the brain often taking
responsibility for vocalizations intended to signal
aggression" (SN: 5/21/94, p333). If this is true, does this
mean that the anatomical evidence for language processing
is evidence for consciousness in the sense that we normally
think of mankind's consciousness. If not, what are the
differences?
CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE BRAIN
For many, mind equals brain. Mind is a more general terms
that refers to the processes handled by brain. Therefore,
mind is often an interchangeable term with consciousness.
Is mind equal to brain? The chief area of enquiry offering
evidence one way or another to this question is a
discipline often held in poor regard. Still, literally
thousands of laboratory experiments in scientific
parapsychology demonstrate that there are many aspects of
mind that can not be reduced to anatomical or material
brain.
For example, data clearly supports the "reality" of
telepathy, clairvoyance and psychokinesis. This seems
obvious to this commentator, but then the biographies of
some of the world's most respected people provide a richer
picture than that found in science. However, the point is
simple. Whether it is from the genius of Einstein or the
laboratory of a modern parapsychologist, mind is not equal
to brain! What does this mean with respect to consciousness?
A wonderful Star Trek adventure that I can remember had the
Enterprise actually forming its own consciousness and then
creating a new life form. Somehow, as Mr. Data explained,
the activity of the starship's computers and records began
to take on a "more than the sum of the parts" activity,
form its own neural network and so forth. Will machines
ever become conscious?
SIMULATED CREATURES EVOLVE AND LEARN
This was the headline in a recent Science News publication:
Simulated Creatures Evolve and Learn. The article by
Richard Lipkin went on to cite the work of Karl Sims of
Thinking Machines in Cambridge, Mass., who "devised a
simulated evolutionary system in which virtual creatures
compete for resources in a three-dimensional arena...The
creatures, resembling toy-block robots, enter one-on-one
contests in which they vie for control of a desired
object---an extra cube. Winners---deemed more
fit---reproduce, while losers bear no offspring. Sims
endows the virtual environment with physical parameters,
such as gravity and friction, and restricts behaviors to
plausible physical actions" (SN: 7/23/94, p63). Sims
believes that it may be easier to evolve virtual entities
with intelligent behavior than to create them from scratch.
Artificial intelligence researchers have long sought to
develop the so-called thinking machine. Unlike Sims, most
begin by attempting to model the computer after the
patterns of man. For some, this is the neural model of the
brain while for others it is the deductive/inductive model
of reason. Perhaps Sims' method is more man-like than the
other two. Mankind is thought to have evolved. Does this
help us understand consciousness? Oh, and what about the
collective of consciousness? Will machines soon be
contributing to this field of consciousness? Will a machine
ever dream?
DREAMS, INTUITION AND CONSCIOUSNESS
The "Genius Hypothesis" advanced by Ervin Laszlo and
reported in the Journal of Scientific Exploration (Vol.8,
No.2, pp257-267, 1994), asserts that the minds "of
unusually creative people are in spontaneous, direct,
though usually not conscious, interaction with other minds
in the creative process itself." Laszlo's paper sheds light
on the "archetypal experience" described by Carl Jung while
using history, physics, psychology, artistic production and
cultural development to clearly suggest the strong
possibility (in this commentators opinion, the only real
possibility) that not only do minds communicate, but they
do so at a distance as well!
Is the collective, or the shared consciousness experience,
an independent consciousness? Is it possible that unique
(individual) conscious entities participate as
transceivers, sending and receiving, and that the total of
consciousness is this collective? Does the collective have
a plan, a will, does it dream? Or is it just a repository?
Does it have a neural network or some analogous something
that we might refer to as a non-spatial field? I mean, its
not organic or silicone is it?
CONSCIOUS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Perhaps consciousness is something that has to do with
being conscious of consciousness. I mean, are monkeys truly
conscious of being conscious? Could they even entertain the
idea of consciousness without an object? Or consciousness
as a character in someone else's dream? Does a monkey ask
itself if it really exists?
Is that a fair direction to take our questions regarding
consciousness? After all, are we not likely to be forced to
admit the notion of "devolution" if we do? Are there not
all together too many homo sapien sapiens on the planet
that don't give the proverbial "hoot" about who they are or
where they came from. How many of these people ask the
question, "Do I really exist?" Will silicone ask the
question, "Who am I?" If the Japanese have their way, the
answer is---probably! A "Darwin Machine" is being created
by researchers at ATR laboratories in Kyoto, Japan. The
artificial brain which uses an evolving neural network is
due to be completed by 2001. Hugo de Garis, an ATR
scientist, says the purpose is to produce a silicone brain
with more than 1 billion artificial neurons.
Science News says the machine "will come in the form of a
neural network and will exist within a massively parallel
computer. To create such a complex system, the researchers
will have the network build itself. 'Cellular automata,'
each one a distinct computer program, will actually forge
their own linkages."
This approach, called "evolutionary engineering," provides
for the growth of the silicone brain via connections. "The
neural net grows when cellular automata send 'growth
signals' to each other, then connect via synapses."
(And you thought genetic engineering was something to
wonder about).
CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT A DEFINITION
Defining consciousness turns out to be a process somewhat
a-kin to searching for the core of an onion. As we enter
the new year, and perhaps entertain thoughts of the
upcoming turn of the century, revisiting consciousness is
more than a philosophical exercise or a scientific enquiry.
It is a duty, even a moral imperative, to re-evaluate the
nature of consciousness for this inherently devises the
strategy by which mankind treats itself and all life. For
me, and I suspect for many others, many changes are seen as
necessary for the human race to actualize the highest of
its potentials. As in history, most certainly some of these
changes will be brought about by difficult times. I am
reminded of something Martin Luther King said, "I can never
be what I ought to be, until you are what you ought to be."
King went on to point out that it was precisely the
inter-related fabric of life that each of us was
interdependent upon.
Perhaps, it is the inter-related nature of all life,
consciousness itself, that we are interdependent upon.
Perhaps, just perhaps, mankind will only know his highest
most noble self when he offers the deepest of respect for
all life. Perhaps the invigorated enthusiasm searching for
a firm hold on this stuff called consciousness will
eventually give rise to the respect I speak of.
Thank you and BE WELL & HAPPY!
----------------------------------------------------
Eldon Taylor is director of Progressive Awareness Research
and the author of over 200 books and tapes
http://www.innertalk.com
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