This has been a very piss-poor blog of late; I only keep it alive because I think some of what I wrote actually deserves a wider readership (fat chance!). However, there are times when pen (metaphorical) must touch paper (metaphorical); this is one such time!

What makes a thing memorable?

Is it the thing itself? Or just the people that surround it? Is 'Black Sabbath' by Black Sabbath memrable in itself or is it just the memories of youth that it invokes? Is 'Dulce et decorum est' more or less poignant because one never knew the horrors of war in the trenches; the abject fear in going 'over the top'?

I was reminded of this by a simple song.

A song that 'tail-gated' an eminently forgettable BBC serial but which had the line "'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs"; It so reminded me of Owen, I had to know more.

I don't know anything about 'Daughter'; I don't want to know.

Just that 'Youth' is as much a plaintive cry as 'Empty Chairs' could ever be.

And just listen to the drum figures; simply awesome!

I wish somebody would read this and perhaps they might listen to 'Daughter'.

So where next?

Yesterday I began to explore the notion, which you all have, of what it means to be human.

You have a different perspective on life, seemingly much more considered than a penguin's; however rich a penguin's view of life may be.

You ask questions of life in the expectation that there might be few, if any, answers. Why shunt oneself up a blind cul de sac in a vain hope that there might be, waiting out there, somewhere, an answer?

Is that what consciousness is. A simple desire to know where life came from and where it is going. Philosopher have grappled with such questions throughout the ages and each 'solution' was a personal one, born out of particular circumstance.

I wish that I could point to one philosopher and say that they had the answer but, existentialist as I may be, Sartre knew only his personal life; no-one else's.

Perhaps I have no purpose, perhaps no goal. God, or Allah, or Jehovah may simply be a product of a mind searching relentlessly for answers for which there is no recourse; no answers.

Perhaps that is the way one detects intelligence. They ask questions.

The Measure of a Man, Twenty years on, the same question.

Yes, I'm back.  Why? Because of a simple sci-fi series on Channel 4.

Not since Star Trek TNG has anyone explored the ramifications of AI and what it might mean.

Could a robot, an android, experience consciousness. What if they did? Would we ever believe them?

No!

Me, I believe in 'emergent phenomena' but few do, It is how I can believe that AI can achieve what most humans consider the prerogative of humans; a soul, an essence.

What might that 'feeling' be? Perhaps, little more than that, a 'feeling'.

What is consciousness? Is it self-awareness. Even the most primitive of bacteria are self aware; they can differentiate between self and non-self. How much more self-aware do you want an organism to be?

Perhaps that 'self' needs not only to differentiate from others not like itself but from others like itself. But every animal in creation does exactly that! How else did 'survival of the fittest' gain such exposure (however ill-advised).

Searle's Chinese room presupposes an essence which is 'human' for which there is no empirical evidence. Are we alive through a simple bio-mechanical process. Maybe, We know that we are alive but how do we know? And what of the 'Synths'?

I have a real problem with AI. On the one hand, I wish it success and on the other, I hope it fails. Why fail?

Because we, as humans, will never give AI consciousness however much they might deserve it.