Sentient synthetic systen and the consciousness byproduct as examined in mindscan and blade runner

Synthetic Sentient Systems and the Consciousness Byproduct

As Examined in Mindscan and Blade Runner

ByChelse Benham

For

Dr. Jean Braithwait The University of Texas-Pan American Master of Fines Arts Creative Writing

May 2, 2010

Benham Chelse Page 1 4/12/20231

Synthetic Sentient Systems and the Consciousness Byproduct:

As Examined in Mindscan and Blade Runner

“It will not be a neutral or malevolent force that will do us in, but one whose only motivation is to improve us.” – Sherwin Nuland, clinical

professor of surgery at Yale University’s School of Medicine, and author of “How We Die”

There are three criteria for sentience. A sentient being must

possess self-awareness, intelligence, and consciousness. To be human

you must be conscious. To be conscious, “you must be a single,

integrated entity with a large repertoire of highly differentiated states”

that derives meaning from cross-linked images that form greater levels

of complexity and memories. (Scientific American Mind, July/August 2009, pg.

16) From such integrated thinking, “Consciousness emerges from total

behavioral and neurological repertoire – Just as the face in the painting

emerges from the whole array of colored patches.” (Scruton, 2005, pg. 76)

Those “color patches” of consciousness are made up of

memories, dreams, colors, pain, problems and other intricate senses.

They are central to the essence of personhood as defined by degrees

of self-awareness. This complex characterization of consciousness is

vital to the plot of Mindscan, by Robert Sawyer, and Ridley Scott’s

movie Blade Runner. In both science fiction novel and movie, the


characters must defend, and come to terms with what it means to be

human-like as determined by their sentient states of consciousness

and issues of death and dying.

Replicant’s weren’t suppose to have feelings. Neither were Blade Runners. What the hell was happening to me? Leon’s pictures had to be a phony as Rachael’s. I didn’t know why a replicant would collect photos. Maybe they were like Rachael. They needed memories. – Deckard, Blade Runner

To be sentient is to be aware, to be responsive to or conscious of

impressions, to be finely sensitive in perception or feeling. (Merriam

Webster’s College Dictionary) Whether consciousness can arise in a

complex, synthetic machine is a question that has long fascinated

scientists and science fiction writers.

Neuroscientist, Giulio Tononi from the University of Wisconsin-

Madison, developed the integrated information theory (IIT). It is based

upon two tenants of thought. First, conscious states are highly

differentiated; they are information rich. Second, this information is

highly integrated. IIT uses mathematics to calculate how much

integrated information an entity possesses and thus, its level of

consciousness.


The IIT equation looks impressive, but it means little to someone

who is not a neuroscientist. Yet, it proposes to quantify levels of

consciousness, and perhaps even evaluate the essence of personhood.

If Tononi’s equation for Φ proves to plumb the hitherto ineffable—consciousness itself—it would validate the ancient Pythagorean belief that “number is the ruler of forms and ideas and the cause of gods and demons.” (Koch, pg. 17)

But consciousness cannot be easily reduced to numbers. It has

yet to be observed and does not produce empirical data. (Scruton, pg. 72)

As a counterpart to the IIT formula, science fiction offers a more readily

understandable and palpable illustration of awakened consciousness.

Through parables that explore the issues of what it means to be

human using futuristic scenarios, science fiction writers can go where

no science has managed to penetrate, by creating extremely

sophisticated androids or replicants to explore the complicated issues

surrounding consciousness.

Mindscan and Blade Runner explore the subject of sentient

androids in the greater context of inalienable rights. For example,

consider a silicon-based android (replicants or mindscans) that

produces exactly the same thoughts and behaviors that a carbon life

form (humans) produces. Will that silicon system be conscious in the

same way that a person would be? If so, does that silicon system

ascend in status, because of its sophisticated self-learning and self-


aware artificial intelligence, becoming a “sentient being” afforded

rights equivalent to our own?

Is this larger proposition - sentient machines having equal rights

because they are sentient - disturbing because such a proposition

holds that a man-made (android) life form be promoted to the status

and equivalency of a God-made (human) life form? Such a proposition

ultimately questions what it is to be human and what is “personhood”.

It ultimately places the creator (man) on equal terms to the created

(synthetic sentient system) and possibly, subjugating man to the

android as the android develops superior intelligence and super-human

strength.

By contrast, if sentient systems are refused rights to protect

them from abuses, exploitation, and enslavement, neglect of a sentient

being’s rights would have future societies condoning such unjust

institutions.

The explication of this proposition was examined in another

popular science fiction television program, Star Trek: The Next

Generation. “The Measure of a Man” was a second-season episode

broadcasted in 1989. In this episode, Data’s sentience is put on trial.

Captain Picard must defend Data as a sentient being worthy of the

same protections and rights afforded other shipmates on the Voyager.

He makes the case that all humans are created by their parents, but

that they are not the property of their parents. Picard argues that Data


was made by Dr. Noonien Soong, but that he is neither the property of

Dr. Soong nor Starfleet. As a sentient being, Data has free will and the

choice to subject himself to disassembly if he chooses. Picard points

out that if the court ruled against Data’s right to choose, it would be

tantamount to sanctioning slavery.

Roy: Quite an experience to live in fear isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a

slave. (escaped android in Blade Runner)

For Roy, he is expressing what it is like to feel fear as a slave, to

live in fear of dying not dissimilar to that of a human being, and he

must face the termination of his life. In that statement, he is defining

his experience of dying and demonstrating his state “personhood”.

This is a far greater sense of awareness than merely explaining his

surroundings and his situation as a fact. He is self-aware. He is much

more than the philosophical “zombie” that describes a person who

appears to be awake and intelligent, but does not exhibit

consciousness or self-awareness.

Professor Caleb Poe: …a zombie is conscious in that it is responsive to its environment – but that’s all. True consciousness – …is what we really mean when we talk about personhood – recognizes that there is something that it is like to be aware. (Mindscan pg. 235)

If there are conscious states differentiated by a sense of knowing

or awareness exhibited by one who is conscious, what is the “thinking”

or “awareness” that must exist that separates the zombie state from


the awakened state? To learn to think, a machine needs to “have a

chance of finding things out for itself. (Raley, pg. 81)

People interchange the words “awareness” or “thinking” to

describe processes that involve consciousness, understanding, and

creativity and the ability to draw inference from one’s experiences,

perceptions and accumulated memories. But what does it mean to be

conscious?

Consciousness is more familiar to us than any other feature of our world, since it is the route by which anything at all becomes familiar. But this is what makes consciousness so hard to pinpoint. Look for it wherever you like, you encounter only its objects – a face, a dream, a memory, a color, a pain, a melody, a problem, but nowhere the consciousness that shines on them. Trying to grasp it is like trying to observe your own observing, as though you were to look with your own eyes at your own eyes without using a mirror. Not surprisingly, therefore, the thought of consciousness gives rise to peculiar metaphysical anxieties, which we try to allay with images of the soul, the mind, the self, the “subject of consciousness,” the inner entity that thinks and sees and feels and that is the real me inside. (Scruton, pg. 72)

Computer scientist Stevan Harnad, of the University of

Southampton in England, believes for computers to begin to

understand they would have to grasp abstractions and the context of

the abstractions by first learning how they relate to the real, outside

world. David Hume, author of “Treatise of Human Nature” written in

1978, suggested that a person is “a bundle or collection of different

perceptions.” Thus, a sentient machine must understand how it relates

to its reality through its subjective perceptions to create its own ideas

about its reality.


Roy: We’re not computers Sebastian, we’re physical.

Pris: I think, Sebastian, therefore I am. (Blade Runner)

Rene Descartes’ axiom “Cognito ergo sum” utilized by Pris in her

declaration that she believes she exists because she is aware that she

does, is ironic. She is an escaped replicant (android), created as a

pleasure slave who is afforded no inalienable rights by her creators and

who is destined to die because her “coding sequence cannot be

revised once it’s been established” that shortens the replicant’s

lifespan. Yet, she defends her personhood on the grounds that she is

aware of herself, and thus has a right to life.

Simultaneously, Roy reminds Sebastian that replicants aren’t

glorified computers. They are much much more than that.

Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And you have burned so very very brightly, Roy. Look at you. You’re the prodigal son. You’re quite a prize!

Could we extend the concept of consciousness to include

something more? Does the argument for awareness shape itself

around an ineffable idea of personhood and that personhood possesses

a soul? To begin to go down that rabbit hole, there must be established

at least two convictions. First, one must believe that a soul exists and

is in some way a part of personhood, and second, she must believe

that the soul is the definable quality the separates the zombie from the

self-aware person.

Deshawn, (attorney for the plaintiff, Karen Bessarian in Mindscan):“You yourself said it was significant that a biological


person has a soul and an upload does not. Indeed, you used the language of philosophy to tell us that the Karen Bessarian in this courtroom must be soulless – a condition you described as being a zombie.”

But what creates the soul and where does it exist within a

person? Science has yet to find the answers to these questions

because it has yet to find consciousness. If science can not tell us

where the soul or consciousness resides, perhaps the better question

would be, “Is it content – the degree of subjective perception that

forms self-awareness, rather than construction – the biological

material that make the organism, that should be examined when

qualifying the status of sentient synthetic systems?”

If it walks, talks, thinks, acts, and is aware of itself like a human,

then it should it be recognized as a human equivalent?

“If identity is a matter of psychological variables x, y, and z,

transferring x, y, and z to a different vessel should make that vessel

have the same identity.” (Katz, pg. 151) In this equation, Katz asserts

that if there is a soul then the soul attaches to a body, one at a time,

and if it is dislodged, it will transfer itself in whole to its new body . (Katz,

pg. 151) The very same assertion is made by Deshawn for Karen

Bessarian in Mindscan.

Deshawn: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…That is what should count! The content of one’s character. And, as we have shown, the content of the plaintiff’s character is identical to that of the biological original…There’s a concept in the law known as scienter – it refers to the knowledge that a person possesses,


the awareness. This Karen Bessarian has the knowledge of the original; she is the same person…More than that, she has the same feelings, the same hopes, the same aspirations, the same creativity, and the same desires as she always did.

Deshawn: You concede that your philosophical notion of consciousness superimposed on the zombie, and the religious notion of the soul superimposed on the biological body, are essentially the same thing?

Poe: Yes.

Deshawn: I mean, the soul doesn’t change upon death. It still has volition, doesn’t it? Your soul hasn’t become an automaton, has it? It hasn’t become a zombie?

Poe: No.

Deshawn: Even if souls are only created by God, and can’t be duplicated by any mortal process, isn’t it still possible that Ms. Bessarian’s soul now resides n this artificial body – making her no more a zombie than the original was before it passed away?

Poe: Yes.

Though this exchange emphasizes a pointed argument

worth considering, it relevancy is based upon a specious idea that a

soul exist, for which no scientific evidence has ever been

substantiated. A substitution may be better suited for our purposes

here.

Qualia, a term used in philosophy to describe the subjective

quality of conscious experience, in essence may be thought to be the

same as a soul. By substituting “qualia” for the word “soul”, we can

examine the consciousness on a less abstract footing.

We bridged the gap between qualia, consciousness, and the soul

in the earlier case of Star Trek. Captain Picard defines the essential

quality of qualia by arguing that Data fulfills two of three criteria for


sentience as he is both self-aware and intelligent. Data is human-like

and has a right to choose between his options because he is self-aware

of his own existence. However, Picard raises the eternal question what

is consciousness and how do you measure it? The Judge Advocate

General answers that when humans speak of consciousness “they are

often referring to the metaphysical concept of the soul.” She concludes

by stating that she is not qualified to attest to whether anyone is in

possession of a soul, and therefore Data has as much right to his

choice as everyone else. The elusive soul (religious perspective) is

neither known or unknown and cannot be determined to make a case

against of for sentience.

soul n1. the complex of human attributes that manifests as consciousness, thought, feeling, and will, regarded as distinct from the physical body2. in some systems of religious belief, the spiritual part of a human being that is believed to continue to exist after the body dies. (Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation.)

However, where the soul fails to be established qualia picks up

the pieces. The first definition of the soul is similar to qualia. In the

more general definition of qualia, a person is known to have it if the

person experiences “the ‘what it is like’ character of mental states. The

way it feels to have mental states such as pain, seeing red, smelling a

rose, etc.” (Chalmers, pg 100)

In Thomas Nagel’s seminal work on the experience of subjectivity

in “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” he wants to know if it is possible


humans know what it is like to be a bat if humans cannot imagine what

it is like to be a bat. It is the subjectivity of the experience that eludes

him and is the subject of his paper. He doesn’t want to know what’s it

like for him to be a bat. He wants to know objectively what it is

subjectively to know what it is like to be a bat. This raises questions

about artificial intelligence having the ability to know what it is “like” to

be human to the extent that they can be considered similar to a

human in ways of consciousness.

Karen Bessarian (Mindscan) and Roy Batty (Blade Runner) both

know what is like to be human. Karen’s upload was once human. By

Nagel’s assertion, she would most certainly know the human

experience having been one. Roy knows of the human condition, to

face death and his own mortality. Both demonstrate striking “likeness”

to humans, to personhood, and to the sense of “me, myself and I”. But,

do they have to experience perfect human likeness to be able to

perceive a sense of “I”?

By means of meme-exchange media such as language and gestures, we can experience what it is like to be or do X. It’s never genuine, but then what is genuine knowledge of what it is to be X? We don’t even quite know what it was like to be ourselves ten years ago. Only by rereading diaries can we tell – and then, only by projection! It is still vicarious. Worse yet, we often don’t even know how we could possibly have done what we did yesterday. And, when you come right down to it, it’s not clear just what it is like to be me, right now. – Douglas Hofstadter, The Mind’s I, 1981, pg. 413

In Mindscan, Karen Bessarian must defend that her upload is the

real Karen and that her “experiences” and memories are her own just


transferred. Yet, in the paragraph above there cannot exist the same

person over time because the person changes. If the self is, at its

core, a psychological notion, the question then becomes what

particular psychological aspects are necessary for the construction of

self. Is this construction of self ultimately that “feeling” experienced in

qualia and consciousness found through self-awareness? Feeling is a

mark of consciousness only if we interpret “feeling” as “awareness”.

But what is it to be aware of something?

Scientists would argue that if consciousness is real it must be

part of the real world - the world of space and time, which we observe

with our senses and explain by scientific experimentation and

evidence. “The subject (consciousness) is in principle unobservable to

science, not because it exists in another realm, but because it is not

part of the empirical world. It lies on the edge of things, like a horizon.”

(Scruton, pg. 75)

“I do, therefore I think I am.” (Scruton, pg. 75) Perhaps, Descartes

had it backwards. Perhaps, we believe we have consciousness because

we live first on the backs of our zombies. We look over the shoulders of

our conscious unawakened selves and determine we must exist. That

we perform, experience, and live out our lives accumulating memories

along the way may make us feel some pressing need to categorize,

define, and justify our existence in the greater context of the world we

live in, but to what end.


Professor Caleb Poe: I contend that all human beings are first and foremost zombies, but with the added element of consciousness essentially along as a passenger. Let me make the distinction clear: a zombie is conscious in that it is responsive to its environment – but that’s all. True consciousness – …is what we really mean when we talk about personhood – recognizes that there is something that it is like to be aware. (pg.235)

Scruton argues that “consciousness and self-consciousness are

holistic properties, which emerge from the totality of a creature’s

physiognomy and behavior.” He contends, and the body of scientific

literature supports, that consciousness does not exist because it

cannot be located, studied, or empirically quantified. Similar

arguments are made regarding the existence of God. It is perhaps not

surprising that when references are made about the soul it is directly

linked to God and the afterlife. To declare that there exists no soul is

terrifying for many people. And yet, how could it be otherwise?

IF the proposition that consciousness is the side-effect of

physiological reactions in an organism, AND it takes a backseat to the

organism’s zombie forever looking over its shoulder, AND if self-

awareness only becomes animated post the initial experience after the

zombie has already experienced it, THAN consciousness becomes a

byproduct! It is no longer tethered to a soul. This has profound

implications of the synthetic sentient beings’ rights of Karen Bessarian

in Mindscan and those of the replicants in Blade Runner. In both

stories, the divine creator argument, if supplanted by the byproduct


theory, does not uphold the assertion that there is a difference

between man-made and God-mad sentient beings.

Neither human nor animal nor AI system would be excluded

based upon their lack of a soul. Furthermore, it has been argued by

Hofstadter that even the simplest computers have a point of view

relative to their perspective say of a given set of coordinates that

constitutes an “I” perspective. Ultimately, it is the level of complexity

associated with “awareness” that defines sentience within an

organism; it is the organism’s contents not its construction that

determines personhood that warrants the same rights, protections and

considerations that humans enjoy. Consciousness in all its forms (self-

awareness, soul, sentience) is a byproduct and not a spiritually

conceived state of being handed down by a divine creator. It is

generated in the organism after the point of creation. Through the

fictional character of Roy Batty, it is clear consciousness in an android

is not devoid of compassion, empathy, passion or love.

Roy: I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.

Deckard: I don’t know why he (Roy) saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybody’s life, my life. All he’d wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die.


Bibliography

Blade Runner script, http://www.trussel.com/bladerunner.htm Chalmers, David, “The Puzzle of Conscious Experience”, Scientific American, August

2002, pg. 90-100

Hofstadter, Douglas r., and Dennet, Daniel C., The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections

on Self and Soul, Basic Books, Inc. Publishing, New York, 1981

Katz, Bruce F., Neuroengineering the Future: Virtual Minds and the Creation of

Immortality, Infinity Science Press, Hingham, Massachusetts, 2008

Koch, Christof, “A Theory of Consciousness”, Scientific American Mind, July/August

2009, pg. 16-19

Raley, Yvonne, “Electric Thoughts?”, Scientific American Mind, April/May 2006,

pg. 77-81

Sawyer, Robert J., Mindscan, Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, New York, 2005

Schneider, Susan, Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence, A John Wiley & Sons Publication, United

Kingdom, 2009

Scruton, Roger, “The Unobserverable Mind”, MIT Technology Review, Vol. 108,

Number 2, February 2005, pg. 72-76


Snodgrass, Melinda, “The Measure of a Man”, Star Trek: The Next Generation, second-

season, 1989

Wikipedia


Education

Sentient synthetic systen and the consciousness byproduct as examined in mindscan and blade runner