I suppose that an artifact that was complex and, in particular, sensitive enough to become conscious of its environment would be described not as a machine but as an artificial organism, even if not protoplasmic. A "machine," when wound up or switched on, operates according to external physical laws of mechanics but has no self-organizing, self-repairing, healing or defensive functions. If overheated, it burns but neither avoids the heat nor repairs the damage - because it is not organic.
A description of Nansen's boat makes clear that it is not conscious:
"With manifold sensors, multiple flexibilities, computer nodes throughout, and a nuclear powerplant, it flew itself. His was the will that drove it onward." (p. 20)
His was the consciousness and the will. Sensors are cameras, mikes etc but not sensory organisms within a central nervous system. Computers mechanically apply rules to symbols without understanding the symbols. It was necessary to analyze the description of the boat because we were told that Nansen had to remind himself that it was not conscious.
3 comments:
"If overheated, it burns but neither avoids the heat nor repairs the damage - because it is not organic."
A machine can have a temperature sensor and be programmed to move away from regions too hot or too cold for prolonged function. At what point of elaboration of such a machine do we start to call it organic or conscious?
Jim,
You are right, of course, that a machine can be programmed to detect and move away from heat. I would not start to call it either organic or conscious yet, though! If a machine has not just one temperature sensor but a surface covered with increasingly sensitive detectors of every kind of input and if its feedback mechanisms are such that it responds to every change in its environment not just by moving but also by changing its own inner states, then I think it would start to approach the description of an artificial organism although still unconscious.
To be conscious, it must not only be hot but also feel hot. I imagine that this would require some equivalent of a central nervous system. Very complex, very sensitive, responding less like just a machine with a thermostat and more like an animal that is visibly feeling pain and trying to avoid it.
Paul.
Kaor, to Both!
Anderson played with that idea in "Epilogue," in which von Neuman machines "evolved" to become actual intelligent beings.
Ad astra! Sean
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