If you define awareness along the lines of response to stimuli, that does not even require organic life to occur, correct? A robot continuously responds to stimuli. It cannot feel. It is no more aware than a rock on the side of the road. I think machines are “out of scope” and cannot be made self-aware no matter how much calculating power and teraflops and clever programming you give it, it is just a machine (not worried about AI taking over). So to me that leaves organic life and spiritual non-matter awareness. Well, I rule out non-material too because spirits cannot exists in our reality. And I don’t go for dimensional existences, so to me it just leave organic life with a highly developed brain. Old age increases our awareness due to the experience of using it and being conscious. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
And decreases it due to age-related changes in the brain - do you think a person with dementia is as aware as a 25 year old? And if you reply that dementia is a disease and so irrelevant then the death of any cells and/or tissues would be the same, but that is what ageing is all about.
The robot responds to stimuli ONLY because a living (organic) thing (i.e. human) programmed it to do so.
Agree. But many people seem to be treating artificial intelligence, the ability of a machine to learn, based on human programming, as if AI is a new thinking race of beings to be feared. Anyway, we agree. Silicon or whatever new material is being used for quantum computing, is not an alternative “life” form. It has no awareness and no consciousness. Only carbon based organic life permits self awareness on this world but I will say it is not necessarily restricted to humans; I just believe trees cannot be ever presumed “aware” despite the new age movement in the past that might have had you talking and singing to plants. Yes, a tree has many years experience existing, but very dumb years at that, just responding to stimuli and perhaps mutating through evolution (responding to stimuli of perhaps a changing environment). Is it in the cards for plants to evolve into aware beings? With no central nervous system they probably have a long way to go, like never, but it might be possible to hurry things on by connecting a tree to a computer (machine) haha. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Nerves die, all senses degrade, reaction times slow, brains start to malfunction and slow down. That is not being "more aware", quite the opposite.
I know that I have a very high chance of getting dementia/Alzheimer's. It's only a matter of time before I become so senile that I will start to believe that my mind is sharper than when I was younger and that the youth are the reason behind all the ills of the world. I do hope that I die or have enough sense left in me to end it all before I get in that state of mind and put my family through that kind of hell.
Kind of like Trump then? 71 years old and still thinks he's the sharpest tack in the box? Except for Duterte of course, who is 73 and can still slide a trick past Trump once in a while. Too bad Obama had to step down. According to your premise, he must have been the smartest guy in the room at only 56 years of age. I miss my youth. I knew it all back then. Now I have to leave it to the younger generation to know it all.
