psychic chess masters

@TheGrobe: I do not pretend to know what consciousness is and I like the way you are reasoning. I would like to ask you some questions about your argumentation about the nature of consciousness.

Is it for you something like the magnetic field surrounding electricity? If so, what type of field is consciousness then? What is the consciousness of the earth - which consists of a lot of thermostates and human beings and so much more altogether? (We all can't escape earth, hence are physically one object.)

I am always puzzled by the apparent difference between the physical processing in the brain and the subsequent thoughts in all kind of languages. The difference between magnetism and electricity seems so much smaller. I think it is logic that we use electricity to transport signals through our nerves. But how is that changed into consciousness? Never had the feeling that an electricity station (is that the correct term?) is a place of high awareness, had you?

It is shocking that anyone would not have high awareness around an electric station.  Is electricity a vehicle of awareness or awareness itself?  What directs the electricity?  Ultimately?  It is consciously directed into and out of an electric station.  Everything has some magnetic aspect, but it really only becomes magnetic if there's enough of it and the little poles are all aligned.  So maybe everything is conscious but to various degrees of organization.

No, I think it's a hard-wired phenomenon -- not so much an analogue for the way electricity and magnetism are related, but rather an emergent property of sufficently complex feedback systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

To a degree I do believe that the concept of consciousness extends to communities, the entire human race, and arguably the earth and the universe if you want to think about it that way.

Life sustaining planets, life, and consciousness (including the singularity, if and when it occurs) are just islands of extremely low (and decreasing) entropy in a sea of increasing entropy.

We are very much into the philosophical realm here, this is all speculation on my part, but I believe this is likely how it works.

I believe AI will absolutely become aware.  I believe it may even outlast us.

@Reflectivist: Yet how shocking it may appear to you, I am waiting in full tension on an answer of TheGrobe. Please, don't let us get some friction about this. Why should we all get wound up about some chords of possible streaming consciousness?

@TheGrobe: thanks for the answer, interesting, did not know you would be that fast! :-)

Further reading:

http://www.amazon.ca/Am-Strange-Loop-Douglas-Hofstadter/dp/0465030793

Do you mean self-aware?

Yes.  Sentient.

Oh, also, free will is an illusion.  Time may be as well.

How would you know if a computer is self-aware?

Did you think I would recoil in response, or revolt?  A less restrained fellow than me might tell you to go flux yourself.  A lot of people get amped up in discussions like this, but it is important to at least try to transform people's awareness, regardless of their capacity to deflect such induction.  I play devil's advocate; I cannnot simultaneously play arc angel.  I strive to discharge whatever knowledge I have gained in my field - to be a generator of ideas, for I know that in a torrent of truth, resistance is futile. My reply has gone full circuit now, so to avoid oscillation, I will be monostable until further input.

It orders a pizza with anchovies.

How do I know you are?

Wait, I don't understand? Is that an answer?

Smell his breath.  If it reeks of anchovies, he is self-aware.

I mean that the only consciousness I can be certain of is mine, so there'd be no way of knowing for certain whether a computer was self aware or not, but I also can't know for certain if you are either.

A self-aware AI could raise the tenor of these threads. 

So you don't know if A.I. can become self-aware, because you're not sure if anyone is self-aware besides yourself? Is this what you mean?

I believe it can, but I can never know for certain if it has.