Home

Welcome to the conscious-calculator wiki!

Why

I've been wondering about human consciousness for a while now. In particular I'm interested in what creates the 'experience of experiencing'. Why do I not just silently process data like a machine, but instead I observe every thought I make. Why is that observation of thought necessary, and what is the thing that does the observing?

In wondering about that, I've always felt that once we could understand consciousness, we would discover that it exists in many forms and levels. In particular, I think consciousness as a phenomenon can exist in systems with highly varying levels of intelligence, and that the strength of that conscious phenomenon is probably tied to the level of intelligence.

My favourite example for a long time has been that of a consciousness, with the intelligence of a calculator - a conscious calculator.

It occurred to me in late 2019 that, while I certainly don't think I understand anything about human consciousness, I may have formed together enough of a theory that I can actually build something practical.

What does "Consciousness" mean to me?

The word can mean many different things to different people, in different contexts.

I use consciousness specifically to refer to the parts of a system that produce these phenomena:

• awareness of thought - the fact that the system can observe its own 'thought' and has 'meta thought' (can think about its own thoughts)
• experience of experiencing - the system has that subtle, hard to explain, human sensation of there being something in our heads that observes all of this. In contrast to a mechanical or electronic machine, for which we have no scientific rational reason to believe it experiences anything.

But Consciousness is just an illusion .... and other theories

There are a number of theories on what human consciousness is, and what produces it. Like many, I fall into a particular camp and I don't find any of the other theories convincing.

See Also

• A Theory of the Human Mind