Missouri S&T’s Peer to Peer
Abstract
A researcher trying to develop a conscious artificial intelligence or examine consciousness in plants would be completely unable to do so without first obtaining a clear, concise, and global definition. This idea is what originally inspired my research. The main method of research to be used will be to thoroughly examine scholarly articles pertaining to consciousness and different theories of the mind. After gathering data and different ideas, I will create a definition that is plausible, and is optimized in terms of being useful to researchers. Currently, the issue is that there are an incredible amount of mental features that certain organisms have that may contribute to making them conscious. However, these features, such as emotion, thought, and willpower, have yet to be accumulated into a definition. Consciousness should, at the very least, involve a being's awareness, ability to think, and ability to feel. The main reason this research is important is due to the exponential growth rate of technology. Heading into the direction of sentient machines, we must know whether what we create is conscious or not, and how conscious it may be, in order to determine whether it may be dangerous or not.
Recommended Citation
Bateman, Adam. 2017. "Defining Consciousness." Missouri S&T’s Peer to Peer 1, (2). https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/peer2peer/vol1/iss2/8
