What kind of virtual machine is capable of human consciousness?

Aaron Sloman
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/
Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science
School of Computer Science
The University of Birmingham
Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

Abstract:

Most people think that because they experience and talk about consciousness they have a clear understanding of what they mean by the noun "consciousness". This is just one of many forms of self-deception to be expected in a sufficiently rich architecture with reflective capabilities that provide some access to internal states and processes, but which could not possibly have complete self-knowledge. This talk will approach the topic of understanding what a mind is from the standpoint of a philosophical information-engineer designing minds of various kinds.

We'll see how some designs are likely to produce systems that will discover in themselves the very phenomena that first led philosophers to talk about sensory qualia and other aspects of consciousness. This can serve to introduce a new form of conceptual analysis that builds important bridges between philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, biology, and engineering. It depends crucially on the concept of a virtual machine which despite being virtual has causal powers. Papers and talks providing background to the presentation can be found here:

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/misc/talks/