this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
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I'm Scared About Biological Computing (kuber.studio)
submitted 2 hours ago by wegbier@feddit.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] otacon239@lemmy.world 1 points 34 minutes ago

I thought about this when the first “brain computer” played Pong. To those cells, that is their universe. Reward or failure for completing the game. Are those cells perceiving that experience. Do they get “stressed” when they fail and “excited” when they succeed? If it is conscious, are you killing a living being when you switch off power?

We’ve made so much physical progress in this field, but no one seems to be taking the time to understand what we’re actually doing before we charge on full steam ahead. How soon before turning off a machine is just a little bit of murder as a treat?

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

There’s such a debate over whether or not cells in a dish have consciousness, and whether or not pure silicon representations of those cells would also have consciousness.

So very little effort goes into defining what consciousness is, because humans are scared to find that there are really only two likely possibilities: almost everything is conscious, or nothing (including us) is.

[–] einkorn@feddit.org 1 points 12 minutes ago

IMHO it's a sliding scale not a simple yes/no question.

Is a single cell conscious? It reacts to stimuli in a very basic manner, so there is a rudimentary awareness and I would put it towards the lower end of the consciousness scale. Can it perceive itself though aka does it have self-awareness? I doubt it. But where does (self-)consciousness or awareness start? That's probably the same as asking "What's life"? People have been debating the question for ages and there are edge cases that blur the lines such as viruses.

[–] boatswain@infosec.pub 5 points 1 hour ago

Yeah, the definition of "conscious" really is a puzzle. My guess is that the "nothing is conscious" model has a great deal of crossover with the "free will doesn't exist" one; for both of those, I don't consider them useful models even if they end up being true: if I'm not actually conscious and just think I am, I might as well behave as though I am.

Regardless, we really do need to define what exactly we mean by "conscious" before we can have a meaningful discussion about it. Where's Socrates when we need him?