keywords : sentience - the ability to feel sensations, consciousness - the feeling of being alive
Behaviors are sequences of outputs of animal nervous systems. Behaviors are generated in response to perceptions. Does consciousness direct behavior or is consciousness a reflection of behavior after the fact or is it a combination of the two?
Suppose all or some of the time consciousness directs behavior. Implication is that consciousness decides behavior in response to the perceived world. So consciouness reads the sensory inputs, memories, and inputs from mental simulations of various possibilities in the real world for each of the possible action. And then it decides on the beahvior that is a best fit for the desired result. Desired result has to be predetermined as a goal. Goals are needed to direct behavior. We experience the computational selection of a goal by our brains as drive to reach goal or as desire. In every step of the way, feeling is experienced of sensory and nuerological inputs. It is feelings, as in "I feel good or, right, comfortable, fearful, angry, irritated etc.." that guide us toward our goals. It is also feelings that make us set goals. eg. I want a good job goal. To come to this goal, I simulate life with a good job and life with out one. The simulations generate information and we can feel the consequnces in simulated feelings. We sense a feeling of the would be future in our imagination. Now, if it feels good, we set the goal as something we want to accomplish in the real world.
Suppose consciousness directs behavior. This can be possible if consciousness is a state of mind that is always simulating a model of the world and integrating information coming through senses. The state of mind also uses information from memory and then generates behavior so as to move closer to goals. Drives to do anything is experienced as a desire. Those feeling keeps guiding actions. Now the big problem is how is brain able to produce consciousness or how does it feel any thing. If we can solve that problem, then synthesizing consciousness in machines can be worked on. An example - think of a robot that can feel hungry when it is battery needs charging. It then proceeds to a power outlet and charges itself. Artificail Intelligence is being used to make such automatic machines. Such machines perform as programmed by human masters. But they do not have a deire to produce any particular behavior as they do not feel. If they could feel, then they will start behaving as animals rather than machines. The above robot that feels hungry can simulate what needs to be done to remedy the pain of hunger - charge batteries. Now that it has a goal of charging it's batteries, it can invoke algorithmic programs to find a power outlet and feed itself. Sentience is the component in the synthesis of consciousness that cannot be generated algorithmically. At least, we do not have good theories on how it can be generated algorithmically.
May/202016 : Comment on CFI meetup board
ReplyDeleteWhat is the quality that separates consciousness from other natural phenomenon?
The ability to perform complicated tasks has been replicated in machines. So that ability is not the separating quality. By introspection, my ability to feel
alive is what I think makes me conscious. In fact the ability to feel any thing is what makes humans and animals conscious. When you eat food, the taste is a feeling. When you understand how gravity keeps the earth from running away from the sun by applying the laws of motion, you feel " I see! I get it". When you perceive beauty, you feel drawn to the object of beauty. When you have insights that give you new knowledge, you get a feeling of satisfaction.
A computer loaded with animation programs can be made to create animation films without human guidance. But the animation film will be a collection of random scenes that do not make sense to humans. Now if the computer had the ability to perceive meaning, then we could design the animation program to create films that made sense to humans. We will then have produced a machine with creative capacity. Similarly, if we could synthesize the ability to appreciate beauty, experience satisfaction after completing a task, feel fear when reconfiguring itself, check incoming messages and be excited about an imminent memory upgrade, then we will have constructed consciousness. As I see it, the ability to feel (sentience) is the fundamental building block of consciousness. In other words, sentience is to consciousness as bricks are to a building.
Sentience remains a mystery to modern science. Perhaps it is an undiscovered fundamental dimension of nature just as matter and energy. This fundamental dimension of nature is expressed perhaps by certain arrangement of molecules as it happens in new born offsprings that are known to be conscious.