IUBio

Percentage of brain used for conciousness?

Doktor DynaSoar targeting at OMCL.mil
Wed Jan 7 17:44:33 EST 2004


On 7 Jan 2004 07:29:00 -0800, guyscarsbrook at hotmail.com (Guy Lux)
wrote:

} Reading that the brain makes 100 trillion calculations per second

Read instead that the brain makes 100 trillion calculations in
parallel, constantly, and analog rather than digital. And that's only
pre-synaptic potentials contributing to post-synaptic membrane
potentials, and THAT is modified (and modifies, in feedback)
contributions from neurotransmitters, and we're just getting started.

} (relaxed state or at peak?) and that a new Linux supercomputer 

With 100 trillion processors operating in parallel?

} will be
} able to make 11.1 trillion calcs a second, could anyone hasard a guess
} as to what percentage of the brain's 100 trillion calculations are
} used for pure conciousness as opposed to movement, sensitivity and
} some of the more basic functions like breathing and heart control?

What is consciousness?
You think you know, but you can't give a definition (being a reduction
in abstraction) comprised of objectively measureable criteria.

} If 11.1% or less is used for consciousness, why could this new
} computer not become consious?

And you think you know what consciousness is when you see it, but how
can you be sure? You can't experience someone(-thing) else's internal
state, so you don't know if the behavior you observe is consciously
controlled or completely determined by programming.

} And would a healthy, developed, conscious part" of the brain be
} considered a conscious entity, if it had never had any sensory input.

That's an empirical question. I'll bring the brain, you being the
consciousness meter.

} What sort of input would a brain/supercomputer need in order to become
} conscious?

Now that'd require a digital consciousness meter.

} Sorry, I have this sort of question from time to time.....

You want to see an acceptable artificial
life/intelligence/consciousness? Create a robot capable of acting
enough like it to convince most people, then make it soft and fuzzy
and warm and huggable, and people will accept it as such. Peoples'
acceptance can be measured. "Consciousness" can't. Of course
scientists who stand to gain by maintaining the argument will
disagree, but when they do so most people will either ignore them or
tell them to shut up, and hug their electronic friend.




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