The Myth of the Conscious Machine

An opinion piece on the conscious machine fallacy

Science and tech pundits say it’s only a matter of time I say not ever

“Humans will become very intimate with machines in the future”— Adi Da

Popular science culture suggests it’s almost a given that at some point artificial intelligence will be conscious and embedded in some mechanical, virtual or synthetic structure that is non-organic and not created via biology. This possibility is based on an erroneous understanding of what consciousness is — there is a caveat which will be looked at later in the article.

This should be quite obvious but it gets swept aside as if it’s irrelevant. A machine or computer or its software may mimic what it is to be conscious to the absolute degree, showing logical response on every level including emotion and not be conscious. Even autonomous choice and super-intelligence do not indicate consciousness.

There is great excitement and positivity around all this as if it is both inevitable and salvatory and even a religious quality to it in some areas as if the techno-future will reveal a true utopia and :

It’s the misunderstanding of what consciousness is, that creates a follow through error. Consciousness is subjectivity, the sense of being.

Subjectivity is not, nor can it ever be an object or objective state. In practical terms, it does not exist. The living consciousness is a projection. It’s like a visual film projected onto a wall and erroneously taken to be a solid object, or like trying to locate a person seen in a dream in the waking state (in present space-time). Another analogy is throwing black paint into the air and wondering why it does not color or stick to the “air”.

Consciousness or subjectivity never occupies space or inhabits space, that is the illusion promoted and acted on. There is no thing of being.

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