Yet another human trait – embracing flaws?

@Ronnie – I'm not convinced that throwing more computing powers at the human brain is the way to solve all our problems. Judgment and critique don't come with additional RAM, and those are the forces i think we need to solve the world's problems. Forget time travel, let's work on climate change and hunger, first. Show me a computer that's going to do that, and I'm going to trade in my writer's pen for an engineering degree tomorrow.

If mankind could ever create a computer that is as sophisticated as a human brain (a chemmical computer) imagine if they could actually make it toxin free….. Can you see where I'm going with this?

A direct chemical link would hypothetically be possible. I know this sounds far fetched, but imagine if you could literally have a human plug-in computer, you could literally plug and play stacks of RAM at a time and be capable of just thinking mutlipe equasions and run mind blowing hypothetical scenarios in your head well above "Einstein Level"! Imagine what the human mind could then begin to do following that….. Solve the conunderum of time travel?

Afraid I can't give you a rock solid definition of consciousness on a Friday afternoon.

@Mark – I can'th help but feel that if computers can achieve emotion, they can achieve consciousness. Once you can feel love, hate, pleasure and pain (I think that might be a lyric from a rap song), can consciousness really that be that far behind? And if so, then just what is consciousness?

@Paul – I'm not good at hypotheticals, so I always make things personal. Dangerous, perhaps, but fun!

Like P.D.F., I'm not so sure. If (and it's a big 'if') computers can reproduce the cognitive functions of the brain, there's no reason why they couldn't eventually reproduce the functions of the emotional brain as well.

If we're looking for an 'ultimate differentiator' between computers and humans, I think consciousness is a safer bet. But I wouldn't put my house on it.

It's this same kind of unexplainable certainty that leads me to believe that there is more to the creative than can be replicated by a computer.

Maybe the unexplainable certainty, the instinct, is exactly the thing that can't be replicated. After all, if you can't explain it, how are you going to write an algorithm for it?

If you don't believe in this 'soul', then the only thing that separates the human brain from computers is the level of sophistication. This leads to the natural conclusion that eventually there could be a computer that is just as sophisticated, if not moreso, than the human brain.

After all, we KNOW that emotions are caused by various chemicals whooshing around the brain/body and connecting with various receptors… Don't we? Or are the chemicals just the telephone wire and it's the 'soul' that carries the actual 'signal'? If the 'soul' ISN'T involved, there's no reason that, at some point in the future, we couldn't reach the level of technical sophistication that would allow us to send these chemicals whooshing through an artificially created 'brain' and allow a man-made computer to 'feel' these emotions in exactly the same way we do.

Quite scary, really, but I'm reasonably sure that computers won't reach the level of sophistication of the human brain in MY lifetime (although I get less sure every day) so my place as a unique, human artist is as of yet unchallenged in any serious way. Except by other human artists, of course, but that's another story.