Merlin writes ;; What is consciousness? Or self-awareness? This debate has been raging well before the ancient Greeks. Neanderthals were probably debating their smaller brained Homo sapiens (us) over 100,000 years ago. I can answer the first two questions, the real biggie is how can one prove that another is self aware and or conscious. With the exponential growth in computing power , "real"AI is nearly here. How could we determine if a machine of even a life form is self aware (Sentient) or just "faking" it? Impossible to answer I say.
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