Thread: Could a computer program have a consciousness?

Originally Posted by Serkat

I meant to say "neural in nature", i.e. "nature" not referring to the actual chemical quality of the material, but the macroscopic organization of the system's parts. So, artificial materials yes, but organized in a way other than RAM+lots of conductors+CPU, running a neural simulation software.

Our brain is organized in a way that is equal to that artificial neural network. I don't see why it matters that a CPU is doing the processing of the data.

A better way to look at an artificial neural network program is to see the CPU of the computer as a heart that is just keeping the program alive. When you go all the way from CPU and RAM to the actual program, memory and CPU power has been abstracted so much that the hardware has absolutely nothing to do with the function of the Artificial Neural Network(unless the network is programmed in a low level language).