Re: Wishful Thinking
It is possible that consciousness is an emergent property that occurs with the proper (or more advanced) programming of the substrate (be it flesh or silicon). Most parts of our brain are not conscious. Some parts are due to several forms of memory that are linked and replayed in parallel with anticipation and predictive algorithms that keep our past available, with working memory providing an apparent "present", and frontal lobe scenarios looking into the future. Out of all this arises over time, with with modifications, our identity. It takes yrs for an infant to achieve this using a 100 billion neurons. Theoretically, it should be possible to do it in silicon.
The biggest question is what "modalities" will the computer have? Will it see color, hear sound, feel pain. feel sad, etc?
W. D. Niemi, PhD