The Real Alternative

Consciousness: Mind And Machine

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By Eldon Taylor



What is consciousness? This issue is devoted to some of the intrigue involved in efforts to create “thinking machines” modeled after man, minus of course, his limitations.





Certainly reason preceded language. It would be rather odd if it were the other way around. Still, that’s an interesting thought.





For most people, parts of the left brain handle the affairs of language. Brain hemispheric studies including the now popular Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans show that the right ear sends acoustic information to the left hemisphere. Well, according to Marc Hauser of Harvard University and Karin Andersson of Radcliff College in Cambridge, rhesus monkeys “display a similar cerebral setup, with the left half of the brain often taking responsibility for vocalizations intended to signal aggression” (SN: 5/21/94, p333). If this is true, does this mean that the anatomical evidence for language processing is evidence for consciousness in the sense that we normally think of mankind’s consciousness. If not, what are the differences?



For example, data clearly supports the “reality” of telepathy, clairvoyance and psychokinesis. This seems obvious to this commentator, but then the biographies of some of the world’s most respected people provide a richer picture than that found in science. However, the point is simple. Whether it is from the genius of Einstein or the laboratory of a modern parapsychologist, mind is not equal to brain! What does this mean with respect to consciousness?

A wonderful Star Trek adventure that I can remember had the Enterprise actually forming its own consciousness and then creating a new life form. Somehow, as Mr. Data explained, the activity of the starship’s computers and records began to take on a “more than the sum of the parts” activity, form its own neural network and so forth. Will machines ever become conscious?


This was the headline in a recent Science News publication: Simulated Creatures Evolve and Learn. The article by Richard Lipkin went on to cite the work of Karl Sims of Thinking Machines in Cambridge, Mass., who “devised a simulated evolutionary system in which virtual creatures compete for resources in a three-dimensional arena…The creatures, resembling toy-block robots, enter one-on-one contests in which they vie for control of a desired object—an extra cube. Winners—deemed more fit—reproduce, while losers bear no offspring. Sims endows the virtual environment with physical parameters, such as gravity and friction, and restricts behaviors to plausible physical actions” (SN: 7/23/94, p63). Sims believes that it may be easier to evolve virtual entities with intelligent behavior than to create them from scratch. Artificial intelligence researchers have long sought to develop the so-called thinking machine. Unlike Sims, most begin by attempting to model the computer after the patterns of man. For some, this is the neural model of the brain while for others it is the deductive/inductive model of reason. Perhaps Sims’ method is more man-like than the other two. Mankind is thought to have evolved. Does this help us understand consciousness? Oh, and what about the collective of consciousness? Will machines soon be contributing to this field of consciousness? Will a machine ever dream?


The “Genius Hypothesis” advanced by Ervin Laszlo and reported in the Journal of Scientific Exploration (Vol.8, No.2, pp257-267, 1994), asserts that the minds “of unusually creative people are in spontaneous, direct, though usually not conscious, interaction with other minds in the creative process itself.” Laszlo’s paper sheds light on the “archetypal experience” described by Carl Jung while using history, physics, psychology, artistic production and cultural development to clearly suggest the strong possibility (in this commentators opinion, the only real possibility) that not only do minds communicate, but they do so at a distance as well!



Perhaps consciousness is something that has to do with being conscious of consciousness. I mean, are monkeys truly conscious of being conscious? Could they even entertain the idea of consciousness without an object? Or consciousness as a character in someone else’s dream? Does a monkey ask itself if it really exists?

Is that a fair direction to take our questions regarding consciousness? After all, are we not likely to be forced to admit the notion of “devolution” if we do? Are there not all together too many homo sapien sapiens on the planet that don’t give the proverbial “hoot” about who they are or where they came from. How many of these people ask the question, “Do I really exist?” Will silicone ask the question, “Who am I?” If the Japanese have their way, the answer is—probably! A “Darwin Machine” is being created by researchers at ATR laboratories in Kyoto, Japan. The artificial brain which uses an evolving neural network is due to be completed by 2001. Hugo de Garis, an ATR scientist, says the purpose is to produce a silicone brain with more than 1 billion artificial neurons.

Science News says the machine “will come in the form of a neural network and will exist within a massively parallel computer. To create such a complex system, the researchers will have the network build itself. ‘Cellular automata,’ each one a distinct computer program, will actually forge their own linkages.”

This approach, called “evolutionary engineering,” provides for the growth of the silicone brain via connections. “The neural net grows when cellular automata send ‘growth signals’ to each other, then connect via synapses.”





Thank you and BE WELL & HAPPY!

Eldon Taylor is director of Progressive Awareness Research and the author of over 200 books and tapes (
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