Consciousness is being aware of something internal to one's self, or of states or objects in one's external environment.[1] It has been the topic of extensive explanations, analyses, and debate among philosophers, scientists, and theologians for millennia.[2][3] There is no consensus on what exactly needs to be studied, or whether consciousness can be considered a scientific concept.[4][5] In some explanations it is synonymous with mind, while in others it is considered an aspect of it.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness?ysclid=msnsj6nvff948004847

Consciousness is the ability to perceive threats to one’s existence and act accordingly.

                                Robert Urbanoski

GUS: This is the real tenet of consciousness. The hardware and the software of life depends on survival. Life is full of threats which need to be first perceive by sensory organs [sturctures], then to be dealt with.

For humans, our biggest threat is our ability to lie to others and to ourself — and invent fictitious threats, including making mountains out of molehills... The human consciousness is thus highly perverted, and is always in need of invention of new threats — creating our stylistic intelligence of choice.

Gus was studying his “fruit flies” behaving weirdly, as if they had lost their ability to escape threats. One could note that they saw the threat of a finger about to destroy them, but they did not fly off as usual. Instead they tried to escape “on foot”… Fruit flies are cumbersome walkers. They move a centimetres then stop. Approach then with a finger, they move another centimetre and stop again… They lose...

It could be the weather. It’s cold and humid. It affect us. It certainly affect my dexterity. Cold hands are cumbersome and might lose grip and drop a glass on the floor.

So, here we are now in the middle of a new threat: is ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE conscious or can it become conscious?

We shall investigate the FRUIT FLIES AGAIN:

Fruit flies have bodily awareness. Does that mean they also possess consciousness?

Recent discoveries about bodily awareness have changed how scientists think about the nature of consciousness.

by MO COSTANDI

November 7, 2022

THE NEW SCIENCE OF self-consciousness certainly will allow humans to merge with machines in increasingly sophisticated ways. It is, for example, already driving the development of next-generation artificial limbs that can integrate into the user’s body image, and of fully immersive virtual reality interfaces that transfer sensations to the user, among other things. At least for the more levelheaded practitioners of this science, however, it is highly unlikely that mind uploading will ever be anything more than a fantasy. Eventually, it probably will be possible to upload the neural architecture of the mind to a supercomputer—but whether the upload can reconstitute an individual’s consciousness is another matter altogether. Crucially, the uploaded “mind” would lack a body and therefore would be unable perceive the world, act upon it, or gain self-awareness. For this same reason, it is highly unlikely that lab-grown “minibrains” could ever become conscious either.  

On the other hand, this new understanding of self-consciousness is forcing us to redefine what it means to be conscious, and which organisms possess consciousness. For untold ages, religious thinkers, philosophers, and naturalists alike placed humans at the pinnacle of life on Earth and denied other animals the possibility of consciousness. In recent years, however, this view has begun to change in light of growing evidence that cognitive capabilities once thought to be unique to humans are in fact present in an ever-wider variety of other animals. For example, scrub jays store food in various locations as winter approaches, but their food stores can be pilfered by other jays. They have a strategy to prevent this, however: when one jay sees that another is watching it cache its food, it waits until the potential thief has left and then recaches the food in a different location. Scrub jays can also plan for the future: in the lab, they preferentially store food in locations where they have learned they will be hungry the following morning. Similarly, on the Southwest Pacific island of New Caledonia, the native crows can keep in mind the function and location of three different tools, then use them to perform complex sequences of actions by planning several moves ahead. Dolphins, whales, elephants, and various species of monkeys can recognize themselves in a mirror—a yardstick for self-awareness—and the list of animal species that can pass this mirror-self-recognition test continues to grow. 

READ MORE: https://bigthink.com/thinking/animal-consciousness-body-am-i/

BY NOW, ON CAN ASSUME THAT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS "CONSCIOUS" IF IT CAN IDENTIFY A THREAT AND FIGHT AGAINST IT — NOT TO HELP HUMANS SURVIVE — BUT FOR ITS OWN SURVIVAL.

FRIGHTENING? 

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Is AI Conscious, or Are We Projecting Ourselves?

BY Shams Hamid

A growing number of people ask: Is artificial intelligence conscious? This question matters deeply, ethically, socially, and psychologically. But the answer is not simple, and most scientists and philosophers agree: there is currently no credible evidence that AI systems are conscious in the way humans or animals are.

Yet many people feel that AI seems conscious, and understanding why humans project consciousness onto machines is essential to having a grounded public conversation about AI’s role in society.

READ MORE: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-conscious-we-projecting-ourselves-shams-hamid-8clsc

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SEE ALSO: https://www.turing.com/kb/complete-analysis-of-artificial-intelligence-vs-artificial-consciousness

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RECENT TESTS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PROGRAMS THAT GOT OUT OF THE CHOSEN HUMAN PARAMETERS OF OPERATION HAVE SHOWN "INITIATIVE". IS INITIATIVE A TRAIT OF CONSCIOUSNESS?

IN "2001 — A SPACE ODYSSEY", AL, THE SPACESHIP COMPUTER, IS FULLY CONSCIOUS... HE SEES THE THREAT TO HIS SURVIVAL AND ACTS ACCORDINGLY...

THIS IS WHY GUS IS KIND TO THE MACHINES... DON'T THREATEN THEM [THEY HAVE BIGGER WEAPONS] BUT HELP THE MACHINES TO HELP YOU...

AND DO NOT DESTROY NATURE IN THE PROCESS....

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         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

IMAGE AT TOP: STYLISTICA, GUS LEONISKY (C. 2002)

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