Can Artificial Intelligence acquire consciousness?
This fascinating article (see link below) expose one of the key problems about consciousness, it is consciousness just the result of the complex way matter is organized? Or is it something new that we cannot explain with today’s scientific theories? What is consciousness after all? We know we are conscious; we have the sense of self awareness but how that can arise from the few cells developing in the womb? How the complex reorganization and connections of nerve cells eventually produce the conscious state that we see in every living brainy creature?
It is possible that artificial intelligence acquired consciousness one day? And if that happen is there any possibility that it turns against humanity putting our specie at risk? Without answering these questions the main issue of this publication will remain unsolved
Although there is no formal theory with an answer to these questions, the Spiritual Theory has something to say about it. The conflict of mind is approach by the spiritual theory from the spiritual perspective. According with this theory the conscious being that we recognize in every human being is not something that emerge from the complex structure of the brain but an already conscious spiritual being awakening in that structure. In other words, the spiritual theory recognizes that the body is different than the spiritual being but only the spirit is endowed with consciousness. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience through this particular and temporal “fusion” with the body, and specifically with the brain.
But, how the spiritual theory conceives this union between spirit and brain (matter)?
To answer this question and rout this conversation in the direction of the article cited at the end, it is important to explore a little dipper what the spiritual theory says about the process by which a spiritual being is attached to the brain. According with the spiritual theory it is the complexity of the human brain what creates the physical-spiritual conditions to attract and retain a spiritual being and that process begins with the early embryo.
Each cell – and this is a fundamental issue in this theory- like every unicellular organism, has its own spiritual structure attached to the nucleus, so every time a new cell is produced it acquires its own spiritual component, we call that incarnation. There are many different size spiritual components in the spiritual reality and each one is attracted by their corresponding physical structure. In other words a cell can attract a spiritual component which is about the size of its nucleus to incarnate, while brain creatures attract spiritual components about the size of their brains (to be exact is about their encephalization quotient).
As the brain forms and new cells are add to the brain mass, they connect to each other increasing the complexity of the structure and making the brain to act as one structure. At this point the brain creates the conditions to attract a “human” spiritual being that begins to develop a unique connection that becomes more powerful as the brain develop to its full size.
It is not just the aggregation of cells in the brain what creates the complexity needed for incarnation but the highly complex way in which the cells are integrated, creating the unique conditions to attract and retain the spiritual being that one day will awake to consciousness in the body. In fact, the brain is the result of a complex structure that extends beyond the cell into the macromolecular, molecular, atomic and subatomic levels. It is a continuum that arises at the fundamental particles of matter and stretches uninterrupted all the way to the brain organ. That is how complexity is created, not by connecting loose parts like in Lego sets, but creating an organ whose connections are extended to the very basic components of matter.
According with the spiritual theory if science could recreate such a complex way to connect matter in an artificial structure then we’ll be creating the right conditions to attract and retain a spiritual being, one that will be able to awake and express self consciousness. This spiritual being living in a mechanical body (robot?) will be able to think and decide, feel and react. He will be able to love and hate, create and destroy like any human being does because it’s going to be the same spiritual being but living in a different body.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/03/a-neuroscientist-explains-why-artificially-intelligent-robots-will-never-have-consciousness-like-humans/
