In the fullness of time, classical computers are more than stupid: they follow decision trees anticipated previously. In the fullness of time, they run out of anticipation…. They can adapt to new circumstances, thanks to neural networks, but not much. Full, real neural networks as found in real brains are nonlinear. However, even if one duplicated those, and one will, it remains that real creative intelligence requires consciousness.
We have seen the situation: a supposedly autonomous vehicle drives down a double lane road, the lanes being separated by a dotted line, as usual. However, at some point bright orange plastic cones have been added on top of the dotted line.The addition of cones has no meaning whatsoever. A human driver would slow down, inspect and proceed. The autonomous vehicle stops, because the situation has not been anticipated by its elaborate programmation. There the autonomous vehicle is, in the middle of the road, blocking two lanes of traffic. Engineers are called, they come, fix the vehicle, which starts, makes a full three meters and then stops again, in a concert of furious horns.
This lack of creativity can only be remedied, I claim, by what we call consciousness.
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WHERE DOES CONSCIOUSNESS COME FROM? QUANTUM PHYSICS:
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and flies like a duck, it is probably a duck. Quantum physics is this set of behaviors, and descriptions, and the essence of consciousness is what it looks like… Should it be called the Quantum of consciousness? When one lists the most mysterious features of Quantum Physics and the most mysterious features of consciousness, one gets a one to one correspondence. A reasonable inference is that consciousness is a Quantum phenomenon.
Human beings operate using their own thoroughly trained neural networks, what is called “expertise” [1]. So a human driver is on automatic, using previously constructed neural networks, until an unanticipated, never seen before event occurs. Then alert systems notify human consciousness that something is amiss…human consciousness then does what consciousness does, which is exactly what the Quantum does, namely consider the implicated whole: look all around, to anything and everything whatsoever, to find out of the box perspectives.
This is how electrons miraculously find lower energy solutions, the core of Quantum magic [2]. The Quantum, and that’s the essence of the Double Slit Experiment, can tell where the solutions are (the Quantum computes and finds those solutions with Quantum Waves). Thus, when unanticipated cones in an unanticipated position show up, human consciousness inspects the entire situation, and finds them nonsensical, thus proceeding with caution. Maybe new paint on the centerline?
How do we engineer ARTIFICIAL CONSCIOUSNESS? Well, by computing with Quantum Waves, also known as the Quantum Computer. So a scientific-technological remedy, to speak like tyrant Putin, is at hand…
Patrice Ayme
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[1] Except in the case of the CDC, which has none.
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Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 