Chats on the Charles

The study of Consciousness is one of the most complex areas of philosophy and increasingly of Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence. As machines become more adept at tasks previously exclusively in the human domain, one question looms over all. Can machines eventually attain human Consciousness?

To answer this question one has to define Consciousness and assess whether it is the end result of formulaic interactions among our 86 billion neurons or something else. This field of research is immensely fertile at the moment as new imaging and measuring techniques allow us to peer deeper into human and animal brains.

A recent article on Consciousness is an excellent primer on the issues. It takes a philosophical and neurobiological look into the apian mind and asks the question, “What is it like to be a Bee?” The article raises more queries than it answers but that is the current state of the research. The field bears close watching because it begins to address the most fundamental question of all – what it means to be human.

We think our intelligence and our emotions are more than purely deterministic responses to an extremely large but finite number of chemical and neurological stimuli. What if that turned out not to be true. What if animals are conscious too, just in a different way.   What is the role of the Divine in such a construct?  The implications are truly mind boggling.