| Lavender Gray
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02-24-2005 02:43 AM ET (US)
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Machine means anything physcial. It doesn't matter HOW complicated the machine is, or HOW long it lasts. Consciousness is a non-physical phenomena. A program of data streams could keep getting more complicated until the end of time and there's never going to be a point where it starts producing awareness. It's like if you take an abacus, and say, "This bead means one, and this bead means ten" and so forth, you can do equations and stuff on it. But the abacus itself doesn't understand any of this. And no matter how big or complex the abacus gets, or whether it's made out of beads and metal or carbon compunds, it's never going to start understanding. Not unless there's something outside working through it.
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