34803Y139 Indeed, doctors have recently managed...

Q&@

TO COMMUNICATE
WITH SUCH PATIENTS
USING fMRI IMAGING! THEY
ASK THE PATIENTS YES/NO QUESTIONS,
TELLING THEM TO IMAGINE THEMSELVES PLAYING
IF THE ANSWER IS YES, AND TO VISUALISE THE LOCATION
OF THEIR HOME IF THE ANSWER IS NO! The doctors can then
observe how the motor cortex lights up when patients imagine playing
tennis (meaning 'yes'knipoog, whereas 'no' is indicated by the activation of brain areas
responsible for spatial memory. All this is very well for humans, but what about computers?
Since silicon-based computers have very different structures to carbon-based human neural networks,
the human signatures of consciousness may not be relevant to them. We seem to be trapped in a vicious
circle. Starting with the assumption that we can believe humans when they report that they are conscious,
we can identify the signatures of human consciousness, and then use these signatures to 'prove' that humans
are indeed conscious. But if an artificial intelligence self-reports that it is conscious, should we just believe it?
So far, we have no good answer to this problem. Already thousands of years ago philosophers realised that
there is no way to prove conclusively that anyone other than oneself has a mind. Indeed, even in the case of
other humans, we just assume they have consciousness - we cannot know that for certain! Perhaps I am the
only being in the entire universe who feels anything, and all other human beings and animals are just mind-
less robots? Perhaps I am dreaming, and everyone I meet is just a character in my dream? Perhaps I am too
trapped inside a virtual world, and all the other beings I see are merely simulations? What really do we see if we dream,
imagine, hallucinate, describe, draw, paint, construct, believe, suppose, remember, fantasise, want, fear, hate & love?
According to current scientific dogma, everything I experience is the result of electrical activity
in my brain, & it should therefore be theoretically feasible to simulate even entire virtual worlds
that I could not at all anymore possibly distinguish from the 'real' world?
Some brain scientists also believe that in the not
too distant future, we really
shall actually 'do such
things'! Well, maybe
it hàs already
been done -
to yóu?

09 jun 2019 - bewerkt op 13 jun 2019 - meld ongepast verhaal
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