Consciousness Definition Essay

The topic of why humans are the way we are is one that has caused some of the greatest thinkers of human history to spend years pondering. Along with this pondering, questions have risen that has caused many controversies over the years. The questions include things such as “What is the mind?” “Where is it found?” “Why do we experience what we do?” “How do we know what I am seeing and experiencing is the same thing that you are experiencing?” And perhaps one of the biggest questions that has continued to stump thinkers from every discipline “What is Consciousness?” In medical terms it is roughly defined as “not being unconscious,” whereas in a general sense it has been defined as “being aware” or even just “being awake.” And while there have …show more content…
The collective minds at Stanford University say that it is “It is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable.” (McCarthy J.) However for the purposes of looking at the question of if Artificial Intelligence can be conscious this definition will not be used. Merriam-Webster defines artificial intelligence as “the power of a machine to copy intelligent human behavior.” It is perhaps this definition that is held by most people. This definition gets us closer to what I am going to be discussing, but for the purpose of getting at it in terms of its relation to the topic of consciousness we will use a simplified version of the google definition as provided by Jack Copeland in an article written on the subject of “What is Artificial Intelligence” of artificial intelligence as “making computers do things that require intelligence when done by