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Comment by ThomPete | Hacker News Reader

So various physical and chemical elements can form ever more complex pattern-recognizing feedback loops and end up like the conscious beings that we are, but it's not possible for us to further evolve via/with technology?

That doesn't make much sense.

This all depends on the lenses on see this through.

If one takes the perspective that evolution is a way for our genes to "find ever better vessels for the information carried in our DNA" then it seems like the meatvessel we are isn't the most optimal for the future.

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An interesting question is perhaps to ask when did our species become "conscious"? Neanderthal? Erectus? Habilis? Our last common ancestor with chimpanzee?

It would seem to me that these were all "conscious" in some way and that there is a continuum of this "consciousness" thing whatever it is.

My current thinking is that higher level "consciousness" is about levels of self-awareness. I can be self-aware, but am I aware that I am self-aware?

This implies to me that there must be some mechanisms that provide the ability to get input from ones own processes to begin to form consciousness. Feedback loops of some sort. I have a sense that given the right quantity and nature of feedback sensing abilities combined with a neural network, appropriately biased to some goal like self preservation, a form of consciousness could emerge. (?)

Pure speculation...

It's not pure speculation at all - it's a very active field of research that currently points to the fact that consciousness is a spectrum. There are animals that recognise themselves in the mirror and have a clear concept of self versus other. There is evidence for plants communicating with each other by various means. So asking "when did our species become conscious?" is akin to asking "when did you become an adult?" and expecting a specific date or event as a reply...

I think the answer to that is the same as when did we become human. I.e. we are still getting more and more conscious and technology is part of that growing consciousness.

> various physical and chemical elements can form ever more complex pattern-recognizing feedback loops

You're not being reductionist enough. The brain is just atoms. 'Feedback loops' is just a model, and not actually real. The problem is that physics never predicted that consciousness would arise, there is literally no physical model for what consciousness is.

It was just a comment, I thought that was implied :) But yes.

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