The Four Marks of a Self-Conscious Robot

In his latest book, The Silver Species, Lawsin demonstrated how to develop a self-programming algorithm based partially on a simple flowchart he named The Four Marks of a Conscious Robot. 

1. It can transcodify information to physicals; the primary indicator of consciousness.
2. It can transform physicals into actions or movements; the first universal instruction.
3. It can transfer motions into mechanical, repetitive, or autonomous actions.
4. It can translate the mechanical persona (feeling, thinking, behaving) like of the homodruinos into a learned instinct "conscious being".

Before we discuss in details how the Four Marks can make a self-conscious robot, let us define first what are consciousness, subconsciousness and unconsciousness? Then, let us find out if consciousness and subconsciousness really exist or are they just illusions? And finally, does consciousness emerge in the brain or is it all mechanical; an action-reaction, sensor-actuator type of emergence?

English philosopher John Locke viewed consciousness as a psychological concept defined as "the perception of what passes in a man's own mind". In the early 19th century, the concept was considered - as a kind of mental substance totally different from the physical world. In neuropsychology, it is defined in terms of alertness or responsiveness characterized by the patterns of electrical activities in the brain recorded by a device known as electroencephalograph.

Meanwhile, psychoanalysts define subconsciousness as a mental processes occurring just below the level of awareness. It is a zone between the conscious and the unconscious. Although in popular usage, subconscious and unconscious are often taken as synonymous, the distinction can be defined by examples like sleeping is to subconsciousness as comatose is to unconsciousness.

In my opinion, consciousness is a product of data gathering. It is like gathering the necessary ingredients (heat, fuel, oxygen) to produce fire. Fire is to consciousness as heat, fuel, oxygen is to read, think, write. When the body receives information, processes such information, and uses the information, the body becomes mechanically conscious. When the body knows what its doing, the body becomes physically self conscious.

Automatons are examples of mechanically conscious objects. But are they aware of themselves? Do they have the perceptions for what they are programmed? Do they know what they are doing? Can they be considered conscious? Do they have the ability to label physical objects? Do they have the ability to transform these physicalities to abstractness? Do they have the ability to transform these abstractness to physicalities ?

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"The consciousness of the mind 
is less powerful than the subconsciousness of the body." 
~ Joey Lawsin

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NOTICE: Articles on this site are composed on random thoughts. The transcript may not be in its final form. It maybe edited, updated or even revised in the future based on the outcomes of  the author's experiments.

Public Domain Notice: Copyright (c) 2000. All rights reserved. This article is part of a book entitled Biotronics: The Silver Species. Copies are welcome to be shared or distributed publicly as long proper citations are observed. Please cite as follows: The Biotronics Project, Joey Lawsin, 1988, USA.

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The Homotronics® and Homodruinos® logos are registered trademarks. Copyright Biotronics© Inc. iHackRobot®. All Rights Reserved.
Patent Pending. 2000 © ®  ==================================================================

" Consciousness is the ability of an object to transform physicalities 

to abstractness or vice versa. " ~ Joey  Lawsin

Will the Internet become Conscious ?

Information Materialization definitely agrees that there is a huge possibility that one day the internet will develop its own consciousness.

However, in order that this type of consciousness will materialize, the following issues must first be resolved:

 1. Search engines like Google must change their ways of storing information.
 2. Remember, the brain doesn't store pieces of information in binary or hexadecimal.
 3. The Simplified Theory of Consciousness must be viewed as its absolute foundation.
 4. A new mathematical algorithm must be formulated parallel to the Bowlingual Experiment.
 5. A microprocessor must be developed similar to the structural syntax wave forms synthesized in the Algorithm of SONG, the Symphony Orchestra Neural Grid (Lawsin, 1988).

Before we discuss the 4 basic criteria in creating a conscious robot, let us examine first what do other experts say about consciousness. Brandon Keim, a Science reporter and freelance journalist of Wired Magazine, wrote an article with a headline - "A Neuroscientist’s Radical Theory of How Networks Become Conscious". A portion of his article is posted below:

IT’S A QUESTION that’s perplexed philosophers for centuries and scientists for decades: Where does consciousness come from? We know it exists, at least in ourselves. But how it arises from chemistry and electricity in our brains is an unsolved mystery.

Neuroscientist Christof Koch, chief scientific officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, thinks he might know the answer. According to Koch, consciousness arises within any sufficiently complex, information-processing system. All animals, from humans on down to earthworms, are conscious; even the internet could be. That’s just the way the universe works.

“The electric charge of an electron doesn’t arise out of more elemental properties. It simply has a charge,” says Koch. “Likewise, I argue that we live in a universe of space, time, mass, energy, and consciousness arising out of complex systems.”

What Koch proposes is a scientifically refined version of an ancient philosophical doctrine called panpsychism, the belief that everything material, however small, has an element of individual consciousness. However, most of the assertions on this article are flawed. First, Consciousness doesn't exist (see the Software Illusion). Second, assuming it exists, not all living things are conscious and with brains. Third, there are subatomic particles smaller than electrons. Fourth, Chemistry and Electricity have nothing to do with Consciousness (see scriptional jump).

Let me explain why Koch's proposals are definitely wrong. To make the internet conscious, it must subscribe to The Four Marks of a Conscious Robot proposed by Lawsin(1988) in his works on I.M.

1. It can transcodify information to physicals, the primary indicator of consciousness.
2. It can transform physicals into actions or movements, the first universal instruction.
3. It can transfer motions into mechanical, repetitive, or autonomous actions.
4. It can translate the mechanical persona (feeling, thinking, behaving) like of the homdruinos into a learned instinct "conscious being".

NOTICE: Articles on this site are composed on random thoughts. The transcript may not be in its final form. It maybe edited, updated or even revised in the future based on the outcomes of  the author's experiments.

Public Domain Notice: Copyright (c) 2000. All rights reserved. This article is part of a book entitled Biotronics: The Silver Species. Copies are welcome to be shared or distributed publicly as long proper citations are observed. Please cite as follows: The Biotronics Project, Joey Lawsin, 1988, USA.

================================================================== 

The Homotronics® and Homodruinos® logos are registered trademarks. Copyright Biotronics© Inc. iHackRobot®. All Rights Reserved.
Patent Pending. 2000 © ®         ==================================================================