Read this.

I'm going to have to read this later.

Wow. But I would have to point out that underlying AC appears to be "the consciousness of AC" so the question is still begged - AC might be the form or the matter or whatever allowing the expression of consiousness, but consciousness is still somehow more fundamental and capable of being expressed in concert with an infinite number of forms .... (both organic and inorganic)???

But is it a consciousness? The only reason it solved the problem was because it was a computer and it was given a problem, which it was programmed to solve before it could shut itself down. That doesn't really imply a consciousness.

Asimov seems to allow it to be consciousness, says at the end: "The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe ...." I struggle with whether or not I believe "consciousness" can be applied to inorganic as well as organic structures, but I can almost believe it if I assume an underlying consciousness that simply needs some form of matter to manifest (kind of Buddhist, I think, though I don't know enough to say for sure).

The things that confuses me about an inorganic object having a consciousness is that the consciousness had to have existed independently of the object before that, and then at some point "possessed" (or embodied, or something) the object... right? Can an inorganic thing have a consciousness to begin with?

Oh, and just to clarify, what is the difference between a 'consciousness' and a 'soul'? Is there one?

Now that I think about it, the computer itself can be 'conscious' of things. Does 'consciousness' mean it needs to be conscious of itself? Because at that point it would have to be, but it's still just mechanical. Like a brain. The question would then become whether there was something greater ("soul") being expressed through it.

At the moment these are my favorite questions. I don't think consciousness and soul are interchangeable terms. Right now I am thinking consciousness CAN be an underlying reality (panpsychism) that is universal or infinite or whatever and then takes different expression depending on the material form it is using. I've recently been reading about "psychophysical parallelism" which, as I understand it, means that the "subjective" and "objective" aspects of a conscious life are simply two aspects of the same substance - like 2 sides of a coin, both of which are impacted by an event but neither impact "causes" the other. Anyway, I'm not sure what the "soul" is but I want it to be real and think my book is going to be about the history of ideas of the soul - so don't start writing about that because it's mine.

(P.S. Sorry if I didn't respond to all of your thoughts - one problem with the format of the "forum" thing is that you can't keep the previous response on the screen at the same time you're typing - or if you can I don't know how.)

Just scroll down... it's underneath the "preview" and "send" buttons.

Anyway, start writing about it or else I will...