Where does consciousness come from?
jhp: I believe that consciousness is the ability for a computing system to continually maintain and update several simultaneous contexts. These contexts may run highly detailed simulations (including the core "where I am") or more abstract thinking (including the current conversational or semantic context). For a human being, the "primary simulation" results in a powerful feeling of self, perhaps because the here and now that you are feeling is also the here and now that you are simulating.While sustaining these contexts, the system is able to explore related information and can choose to break focus on a certain context, or to open a new context. Usually, a discarded context can be quickly restored, such as in the case of restoring an interrupted thought. Perhaps, then, contexts are continually run, stored, and restored. I don't know. What I do know is that the primary world simulation (with its continual sensory update) is rarely broken without the system electing to do so.That would be "losing consciousness" :)Whether received through sensory input or through memory in the form of stored simulations or related concepts, the constant exploration of related information influences the context that spawned it (and often the other contexts as well). This allows the computing system to update its assumptions as represented in simulation or conceptual frame, and then begin anticipating and exploring possible future contexts.- JHP