Thread: The more I learn and the more I think about the existance of aliens

Originally Posted by Zotoaster

I suppose this leads back to the initial formation of the brain. There is no doubt that these primitive brains were much more simpler than ours. I think I mentioned earlier that they are basically sort of like "reformatting machines". Imagine these flatworm creatures (that had basics brains and basic eyes) were selected for if they were in the dark most of the time (just a stupid example). The brain might take the signals from the basic eyes (which were basically just slightly curved patches) and convert that into muscle movement. The stronger the light signal, the stronger the muscle movement, meaning that when it's in light it will swim until it reaches the dark.

I wouldn't call this consciousness, but when you have to add a new module when your eyes get more dish-like, to recognise where light is coming from, then this is an extra process. The more and more modules you add, the thoughts rise exponentially. It is my belief that what we think of as "consciousness" (deliberatelly put in inverted commas) is tightly bound, if not synonymous with these processes.

I think however that this only happens in the way the brain has these "thoughts", as I (practically) formally defined in my previous paragraph. What makes AI different is that in programming terms, to make some sort of Turing machine, it is just a list of if/then statements, which work completely differently, even though they make them appear the same to us. The reality is that the actions the AI takes doesn't come from the same place (or reasoning should I say) that real intelligence has.

So I suppose it follows that consciousness isn't really a boolean term: conscious, or not conscious (like the processes going on in a Venus fly trap). I would say that it has a scope, like a gradient. A fly is conscious because it is capable or reasoning, but it is less conscious than me because it is capable of less reasoning (this morning I saw a fly keep trying to fly through the glass of my window).

I pretty much agree with you completely. My only point is that it is entirely possible there are beings out there with workings different than ours which may exhibit near parallel actions as ours even though they have no real "consciousness" to speak of.

If a human being can create a machine which will more or less be capable of comprehending things without consciousness and seeming near humanlike, and certainly animal like, then I don't see a reason why evolution couldn't the same.

So my only point is that until we know what exactly makes a thing conscious we could never know for sure whether alien beings are conscious or absolute perfect mimics of consciousness. For all we know we could be fooled just as easily as someone fooled by a robotic human...except evolution molded this creature vs. human minds.

I think (as well I think you do as well) that consciousness arises from patterning. Now if something could be patterned differently, in a way that mimics but does not produce consciousness, there would be no difference between capabilities between the two. Even an appearant "imagination" could be formed. After all computers have "imaginations." Heck the sims will have your characters create entire lives without you even looking...


I'm assuming your point is that massive processes lead to consciousness while smaller processes do not. I would agree, since we both know that is
putting it simplistically I really don't have to go on about speed and modules...

Of course from the paragraph in which you said "So I suppose it follows that consciousness isn't really a boolean term: conscious, or not conscious" it would seem that you think anything capable of reason is conscious...which would mean that you would think that computers (in some sense) are conscious. (edit: Which I disagree with. I do not think computers are conscious, though I have no supporting evidence that they aren't, I see no supporting evidence that they are.)


Edit: Of course I guess you could argue that it is impossible to mimic consciousness without being conscious.