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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 

Quantum Mechanics

Dr. Frederico Faggin

the 'big obstacle' in building a conscious computer

 

 

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Editor's note:

Dr. Frederico Faggin is one of the heavyweight scientist-inventors of the 20th century. In 1971 he developed the first silicon chip, the microprocessor at the heart of all electronic devices today. He also produced the new touch-sceen technology.

Currently, he is writing, lecturing, and advocating what he feels to be an even more fundamental revolution in science - that consciousness, not matter, is the ground of all reality.

 

 

Irreducible, pg. 8-9: “While studying neuroscience I wondered if it was possible to build a conscious computer. If materialism were right – as I then thought – the answer had to be yes. Therefore I explored all possible ways I could think of to achieve such a goal, reflecting deeply on the attributed of awareness.

“It didn’t take long to recognize the big obstacle: the complete lack of understanding of the nature of sensations, feelings, and emotions, what philosophers call qualia.

"No matter how hard I tried, I could not find any way to convert the electrical signals of the computer into qualia, because qualia belong to a different kind of reality with no apparent connection to symbols. It was like trying to transform the feeling of love one feels for a child into a computer program.”

 

 

Editor's last word:

Also see youtube interviews of Dr. Faggin, for example, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14Q_W6H_nZk 

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5REKKkKZpY

wherein Dr. Faggin makes comments, such as, "The structure of matter is isomorphic [“equal form”] to the cognitive structure of consciousness, which can reflect itself [in matter]"; our "bodies reflect the accumulated learning of consciousness; matter is the ink with which consciousness writes its own self-knowing."