Who is More Conscious?

Today, from performing solo surgeries in the operating room (Blass, "Robot Surgeon Performs World's First Unassisted Operation") to conversing with you in English, from serving as one of your prosthetic limbs to printing you a pizza in space (Misiak, "10 Things You Didn't Know Technology Could Do For You In This Day And Age"), computers possess a potential to change the face of human world. We are surrounded by the artificial intelligence in both our personal and professional life. These prolific and astonishingly appalling advancements in technology and artificial intelligence forces us to ask some significant questions: Can artificial intelligence replicate human intelligence? Can this technological equipment possess human consciousness? Can we actually create a human-like mechanical being with a human-like brain potential? All of these are quite though-provoking questions.

Steven Pinker mentions in his article, Could a Computer Ever be Conscious? that despite these increasing advancements, “today’s computers are not even close to a four-year-old human in their ability to see, talk, move, or use common sense.” He further compares the most powerful supercomputer’s processing capacity to the nervous system of a snail, meaning it’s a fraction compared to the capacity of a human brain. Daniel Bor addresses these intriguing questions in this his book, The Ravenous Brain. He gives the Chinese Room thought experiment example, which was first proposed by John Searle. This experiment illustrated that the “Human brain could not be reduced to a set of computer instructions or rules” (75).  In this experiment a non-Chinese speaking man is locked in an enclosed room. He is given a set of rules and guidelines in English that allow him to correlate one set of symbols to another set, which in turn, are Chinese characters. Ultimately, this allows him to “answer” in Chinese to the questions, which are also in Chinese, without actually needing to understand them. Then the questions are translated to English (which, the man is fluent in) and the man is asked to answer them in English. This time he is able to answer the questions a little faster, but also understand what he is asked and what he is answering. Daniel Bor points out that, “When the rules of the book are used to write Chinese, there is no consciousness or meaning in the room, but when English is written later on, and a human is involved, there is consciousness and meaning” (80). Meaning, the first task involves no consciousness or meaning, similar to how a computer functions; while the second task involves consciousness and meaning, similar to how a brain function. This experiments demonstrates the essential difference between the workings of our human brain versus a mechanical device employing artificial intelligence. This shows that human consciousness comprises of something more unique and mysterious than just a set of rules or programs.  

 

Both, Dr. Bor and Pinker explain in their respective works that unlike computers, our brains find it difficult to remember a 30-digit number or find square root of 47362973472937468578483578234, but it can summarize with an ease the story of Beauty and the Beast or distinguish between a dog and a cat.  Pinker says, “One reason for the difference is that computers have a single, reliable processor (or a small number of them) working very, very fast; the brain's processors are slower and noisier, but there are hundreds of billions of them, each connected to thousands of others.”  Dr. Bor also shares an insightful perspective in understanding this concept. He goes on to describe the intricacies at the cellular level that makes the processing of our human brain fundamentally different than mere computers.  He says our brain has a parallel architecture (meaning, many causes and effects), and a probabilistic framework (meaning, one event will make it more likely for the next event to happen, instead of necessarily causing the next event). He states that our human brain has about 85 billion neurons those form roughly about 600 trillion connections, which is  about 3000 times more connections than a PC that only has about 100 million units.  He further explains, “It makes no sense for evolution to have shaped our brains to be highly skilled at accurately calculating square roots. But, from a survival perspective, having a general-purpose information-processing device, which can learn to recognize any single critical danger or benefit in a moment, and then appropriately respond, is highly advantageous” (90-91).

        

Hence, the structure and function of our brain stems from an evolutionary perspective.  Even if we are able to create supercomputers with same number of connections and units as our brain, there is a lot more that goes into human consciousness than just its components, like neuroplasticity, its memory formation process etc., which wouldn’t just be inconceivable to replicate, but almost impossible!

References:

Blass, Evan. "Robot Surgeon Performs World's First Unassisted Operation." Engadget. N.p., 19 May 2006. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/19/robot-surgeon-performs-worlds-first-unassisted-operation/>.

Bor, Daniel. The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning. New York: Basic, 2012. Print.

Misiak, Danielle. "10 Things You Didn't Know Technology Could Do For You In This Day And Age." Elite Daily. N.p., 18 Dec. 2013. Web. 17 Oct. 2014. <http://elitedaily.com/news/technology/10-things-technology-can/>.

Pinker, Seven. "Could a Computer Ever Be Conscious." Could a Computer Ever Be Conscious. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2014. <http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1997_08_18_usnewsworldreport.html>.