In his article on computers and consciousness, Igor Aleksander was
quite wrong to say that "Susan Blackmore ... implies that
constructing a machine that is conscious like us would be
impossible”.
I do indeed claim that consciousness is an illusion. This is because
it feels to us humans as though there is a continuous flow of
experiences happening to an inner self when in fact there is
no such inner self. Computers have no inner self either, but if ever
they start thinking they do they will become deluded like us, and
hence conscious like us. And that day is surely not far off.
We humans can sometimes wake up from our delusion, through
intellectual insight or through practices like meditation. Maybe
future computers will teach us a thing or two about waking up from
illusion.
Bristol, UK
