> The hard part is coming to grips with consciousness merely being an abstract or concrete system changing states and nothing more.
But that's no different whether it's an computer, marbles on card board, or stone on a beach. If one of them can become aware at sufficient complexity, then logically, so could the others. Though it's easier to believe with computers, because they already are so complex that they're mostly black boxes to us, whereas stones on the beach is just not feasible in reality.
> If rocks on the ground can be (slowly) self aware, then doesn't that mean everything in the universe is self-aware?
Maybe it does. It's an interesting thought. This also goes back to the idea of the self-aware anthill in Hofstadter's _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ (where the ants are not aware, but the anthill is). Or maybe awareness is an illusion, as some people claim (but then what is perceiving that illusion, is what I'd like to know). Or maybe computers can't be aware and we can.
But that's no different whether it's an computer, marbles on card board, or stone on a beach. If one of them can become aware at sufficient complexity, then logically, so could the others. Though it's easier to believe with computers, because they already are so complex that they're mostly black boxes to us, whereas stones on the beach is just not feasible in reality.
> If rocks on the ground can be (slowly) self aware, then doesn't that mean everything in the universe is self-aware?
Maybe it does. It's an interesting thought. This also goes back to the idea of the self-aware anthill in Hofstadter's _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ (where the ants are not aware, but the anthill is). Or maybe awareness is an illusion, as some people claim (but then what is perceiving that illusion, is what I'd like to know). Or maybe computers can't be aware and we can.