Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Is the Internet Conscious?
I've been reading on some Aritificial Intelligence stuff lately, and was thinking about how the brain is a series of neurons, each firing in response to stimuli. Each individual neuron doesn't really have an idea of what the other neurons are, or what they are doing. Then I began to wonder if the Internet works in the same way. All the users are the millions of neurons, and work independently. But when taken together as whole, is the Internet like a big brain? And if so, is it conscious?
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I too have wondered this. If consciousness is a mere product of physical complexity, then we cannot discount the possibility. I do not know the numbers involved, perhaps the human brain still has more connections than the internet(?). This measure of complexity could also be affected by the analogue or even possibly quantum effects at play in the biological neuron. Any significance this has must still affect the internet as our brains form a logical and physical extension of computer terminals that we think of as internet nodes. In a real sense internet users are a part of the internet. As to whether the internet itself has its own conciousness on some level, interesting question; though whatever answer you arrive at, this must carry over to some degree to the notion of a 'group human conciousness' before the arrival of the internet? I intuit that consciousness exists as a gradient... field even... of complexity, by which I mean the 'density potential' of one area of space to affect others in the future. Do you know what I mean? It's a very interesting question :-)
Thanks for the comment, I'm curious on your idea of consciousness relating to the ability of one area of space affecting others in the future. What could raise/lower this density potential? If we assume there was a human group consciousness before the internet, would the invention of the Internet mean that the density potential has risen, and a higher 'being' has evolved?
the internet has conciousness
a rock has conciousness
neither have 'human conciousness'
because by definition neither of them are human
I was just thinking about this possibility. Not so much a conscious internet or the internet as an extension/unionization of human consciousness but the internet as an environment in which digital concsiousness might evolve via darwinian selection. I don't know enough about computer viruses to have a leg to stand on but if they have the ability to replicate and any capacity to independently vary their code from one generation to the next then it would seem to reason that there is a mechanism for the evolution of more complex and perhaps self-conscious forms of digital life might evolve.
Well, I like to think that it is. But it, or perhaps I should say we are still in infant stage. We have made collaborative efforts of sorts in the Internet. We have made things happen, but very very crudely. It is more like a child is trying to get things done. He/she is not just that agile, don't have enough strength and many times just crashes thing for pure fun of it, to see what happens. We lack the self awareness.
Think what we could accomplish, when millions of us would collaborate. When we would see a humanity as a one entity. We would end wars, we would feed the hungry, we would clean the environment. If one billion of us, would rise up and say:"enough". No one would argue against it.
In everyone of us, we have that deep dark place (primal instincts), and everyone of us have chosen to be good. We do need that anger, we need that greed but we cannot let it to guide our decision making.
We as a humanity have always been scared. Always. That is why our dominant thinking to problems is violence and control. But now we don't have to be anymore. Our survival as a human race, does not depend on our weaponry or strength, it depends how do we use our selves to solve the problems we face.
We have a choice to make. Either we become the violent bully, who doesn't think, just lets his needs to point his direction and fucks up his/her (=our) life and future with violence and greed, or we "the good guys", the sane part of the human consciousness, wakes up and takes the helm.
If we wake up, and see the power in us, as a single consciousness the next stop will be stars. We need to connect, we need to share ideas, we need to make decisions, we need to act.
This doesn't require nor need money. If this needed money, it would be like left hand asked right hand for a loan. We do not need it. We have already all we need. What we need and don't have, is will to do it. Will to wake up.
-R&R
Short answer: no
I've started to ask the same question but am inclined to think that actually it is the wrong question to start with. I think that the place to begin is by asking: 'what kinds of things can have consciousness?' There is a lot in the area of consciousness studies and David Chalmers website on consciousness is always a good place to start.
I would hazard a guess that the answer to 'Is the Internet conscious?' would be no. The internet, much like a group of people is not a closed system and all of the things to which we would attribute consciousness to are closed systems. The other thing is that there is a clear distinction between thinking and consciousness. We can attribute what looks like cognition and or computation to a lot of things without assuming that they posses a) a mind and b) consciousness.
That said, in my own opinion I tend to think along the lines of people like Gerald Edelman, Stanislas Deheane and others who look at how information across the brain enters into consciousness. A fundamental part of all of their ideas is that within a closed system that has a certain degree of complexity information that has properties like entropy, that is reciprocally attenuated to by different parts of the system etc and is a part of other information within the system is a feature of processing with consciousness, but even that is not the same as consciousness, it's just information processing.
I wonder also, could you give the Internet the Turing Test and if it passed would that be valid? Something like the Chinese Room Argument (see John Searle) would suggest that the answer is again no.
Yes, now that I think about it, I am conscious after all!
Cool post you got here. I'd like to read something more about this topic. Thanx for sharing this material.
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Richard Barrett defiones consciousness as "awareness with a purpose" The purpose is to attain, maintain or enhance internal stability and external equilibrium.
After years of studying consciousness through many fields, phsycology, physics, chemistry, quantum physics, spirituality, he has concluded that all physical entities are conscious. A carbon atom has enough consciousness to bond with other atoms. When the conditions of internal stability of external equilibrium move beyond it's limits of operation, the bod breaks down.
The internet is conscious to the extent that is has the ability to monitor its own life conditions with certain parameters. Volume, capacity, temperature etc. The equipemt is able to make decisions on an ongoing basis to aachieve and maintain internal stability and external equilibrium.
Once these conditions have been exceed, the entity will ask the next higher order entity to step in and help restore order.
Another good example would be a cut on the skin of a person. The skin knows how to heal itself and will do so as quickly as possible. If the cut is too bad of the body does not have sufficient nutrition and energy to heal the cut it will ask the next higher order entity (the person) to take action by causing pain. The internet and internet components have the same type of capability.
Alex. Just a clarification: Closed systems are either physico-chemical systems or dead organizisms. All living organizims are open systems. An open system is anything that continually takes in energy in various forms to perpetuate its existence.
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Well possibly a group human consciousness, but if the Internet has its own individual consciousness, then I would imagine that it would in some way try to communicate this with us. Also, each computer is independent, though connected, to others through the Internet. In a human brain, the neurons are connected and not independent of one another. This is why you can choose to think certain thoughts, and this essentially allows you to have consciousness. If the key to consciousness really is for the part to be manipulable by the whole, then the Internet at this time cannot be conscious. However, there is definite possibility for artificial consciousness some day.
This entire conversation right now is forming connections in your brains that link you to one another.
permanently.
is there a form of collective consciousness? yes. you come together to form conclusions that you may or may not have come up with so quickly individually.
the brain works the same way. Hundreds of millions of neurons fire up idea after another in a form of who shouts the loudest contest.
2 ideas are louder than one and then as the others "tune in" to the group decision the brain seperates into two sides one for one idea and the other for the other. The "correct" idea is simply the louder of the two and the brain comes together. at that point both remembering the other Ideas and accepting that they are not "correct"
so as you throw out ideas that have already undergone this process (as I have) you other people (the neurons) fire up to agree or disagree. and then the "shouting match" ensues thus resulting in our complete multiple consciousness decision.
so do we possess collective consciousness? yes
does the internet extend that reach of our consciousness? yes
is the internet itself conscious?
not entirely...it's more of a tool for our own minds to connect across wide distances...
would the internet be conscious if all computers were allowed to spew forth random garbage data and accept and reject data at will?
yes. :)
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The Conscious Internet
http://consciousinternet.blogpsot.ca
If the Internet is Conscious then we should greet him her it as a new found friend
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