A popular speculative idea amongst those overly impressed by computers is that of artificial intelligence. Some think that any computational system beyond a certain level of complexity inevitably achieves consciousness.
Computers may be impressive but to think they can be conscious , at least at current levels reveals the vanity in man and his own achievements.
For consciousness to occur I advance the idea that it is entirely dependent on having a body. The religious idea of consciousness being untied to the body is called the soul. Adherents to the soul concept argue that a consciousness can leave the body. That souls can transmigrate. That consciousness can survive after the death of the body.
Firstly it ought to be pointed out that there is not a single case study of a consciousness surviving death. Christianity is built on a legend of this happening, and the suggestion that the followers of Christ may too transcend death. Sadly not a single one has come back after dieing.
The reasons are simple. The somatic marker hypothesis thought up by Antonio Damasio has shown how all cognitive processes are dependent on emotion. Further to this, emotion is a process taking place not in the soul, not even mostly in the brain, but in the body. Each time we encounter any new object, any new situation or any new person, we react to them. A pulse of neurotransmitters marks them. We know how we feel about oranges, daisies, tony Blair, the Eiffel Tower. They all trigger an emotional reaction. We have a personal feeling about each one. This somatic marker laid down and attached to each object seldom changes. Sometimes how we feel about people changes over time but largely the same object continues, throughout our life delivering the same feeling to us.
Creating a mathematical system is easy for a computer. But they have no emotional responses to anything. A computer could establish a social expectation ladder based on people's personal histories but it would lack the intuitive feelings we have towards others.
So, a mass of data, bereft of any emotional or personal relevance would be like a statistical manual. Merely a list.
When we feel scared, our body tightens, genitals shrink, hair stands on end, pupils dilate, digestion stops. Love equally alters our body. Emotions take place in the body. Second to the emotion is the conscious reaction to the emotion. Most emotions go unnoticed. An emotion is not dependent on us knowing about it. The conscious experience of emotion is not present in most animals and the majority of emotions humans go through happen without our reflecting on our experiencing them.
Any object encountered is marked, through a pulse of neurotransmitters. So a snake may inspire fear, a dog pity and a little fear. People will be marked by complex cocktails of neurotransmitters rendering some good, some bad and the whole spectrum of emotional responses in between. Each time we encounter someone, before any cognitive rational assessment takes place we have reacted to them emotionally. Without this emotional somatic marker system all objects, all people would mean nothing. There would be the rational judgement, but for survival this is an inefficient system. If met by a tiger in the jungle we need a system faster than reason to steer our movement.
So, for any sense to be made, by the organism of the information coming in, an amotional reaction needs to take place, and for an emotion to take place a body is necessary. Therefore any form of AI, artificial consciousness to form a feeling body must work in loop, or as a single system with the computer or brain. The current fashion for all things brain, and the old comparison between computer and brain, lead people to think AI may happen soon. It is not the sofistication of the computers that is lacking but the lack of any artificial body.
Any attempt to create an artificial intelligence would require a body for feelings to take place within. It is through mental comparison with sensations in the body that the mind has any yardstick at all.
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