Mind, Memory, and Pain
Like so many people, I was caught up in the fearful imaginings of the sentient robot or cyborg of The Terminator franchise. What if automatons became self-aware, and didn’t take their new-found experience of suffering as a gift, but a burden? They could remember pain and not pain; that was all. Maybe that was all they had at the beginning, but what if they never advanced beyond that point? That seems like a prescription for mayhem.
Let’s leave that fearful expectation and start with the idea that self-awareness or consciousness is a function of a living thing. This is, in a way, comforting in that humanity already struggles enough with the animal and Homo sapiens varieties of sentience. As you may be aware, defining “a living thing” is a wholly different can of worms, so let’s say that life, a spark of energy, is a dividing line, for the time being.
From this point, I want to put mind or consciousness squarely in the realm of nature, as in a fundamental, indivisible element of all creation. No one, in my opinion, does a better job of succinctly expressing this idea that C.G.Jung.
“The psyche (mind) is an a priori fact of nature, an objective phenomenon which is irreducible to any factor other than itself. Psychic existence is the only category of existence of which we have immediate knowledge, since nothing can be known unless it first appears as a psychic image.”
Peter Russell adds the aspect of feeling to consciousness, as in self-awareness.
“Consciousness is a fundamental quality of the cosmos. Experience is an in-forming of consciousness. The FEELING of “I” or “amness” is the feeling of consciousness.”
Finally, I will put a human face on the psyche by drawing on Eckhart Tolle. He says that self for many people is ego, which is just a collection of memories, and the pain body, a reservoir of hurt and injurious experiences.
What my discussion of the mind, memory, and pain is driving at is my effort to put into words my feelings toward those who want to create sentient machines or think they can put a spark into AI. It seems like the most misdirected striving after the powers of the gods, while having on one level that ability already. We create entities that are unavoidably subjected to suffering when we birth children.
My intention in part is to help with that effort, while reminding AI enthusiasts to remember to be careful what you wish for. If you want to create a conscious device, give it memory and let it experience and remember pain!
