My friend Simone points me to an insightful article about a matter which interests me a great deal: can machines be conscious? By chance, this comes just a couple of days after Rough Type pointed me to an interview with Douglas R. Hofstadter, a very important and well-known cognitive scientist and, dare I say it, one of my personal heroes.
Being a cognitive science, mind philosophy, AI, whatever mind stuff junkie, I’ve read a lot of interesting things about this subject and its whereabouts. I tend to disagree with the general statement that nobody really knows exactly what consciousness is; I think I’m a little more in line with Hofstadter’s view you can find at the start of the interview. But I believe this may not interest you as much as the fact that, among all the things I’ve heard about the subject, the one that I found the most suggestive is the dialogue between Neo and Rama-Kandra in the movie Matrix: Revolutions:
R: I am Rama-Kandra. This is my wife, Kamala. My daughter, Sati. We are most honored to meet you.
N: You are programs.
R: Oh, yes. I am the power-plant systems manager for recycling operations. My wife is an interactive software programmer. She is highly creative.
K: What are you doing here? You do not belong here.
R: Kamala! Goodness, I apologize. My wife can be very direct.
N: It’s okay. I don’t have an answer. I don’t even know where “here” is.
R: This place is nowhere. It is between your world and our world.[...]
N: Is that what you’re doing here?
K: Rama, please.
R: I do not want to be cruel, Kamala. He may never see another face for the rest of his life.
R: I’m sorry.
N: You don’t have to answer that question.
R: No, I don’t mind. The answer is simple. I love my daughter very much. I find her to be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. But where we are from, that is not enough. Every program that is created must have a purpose. If it does not, it is deleted. I went to the Frenchman to save my daughter.
R: You do not understand.
N: I just have never…
R: Heard a program speak of love.
N: It is a human emotion.
R: No, it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies.
R: I see that you are in love. Can you tell me what you would give to hold on to that connection?
N: Anything.
R: Then perhaps the reason you are here is not so different than the reason I am here.
There is one thing that has been annoying me for some time now. Then something happened, and the last straw broke the camel’s back.
Sometimes I wonder if the people who rule the world have been to kindergarten.
Yes, it really is that simple.
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