Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> How complex can the computer get before you'd say it's a sentient being 
> making a choice based on what it wants?  If we had SciFi levels of AI 
> around, would you claim they're not sentient, not really making choices?

  One (maybe not completely physical) possibility would be if the
computer/brain is able to make decision as a closed system. In other
words, it's capable of processing and changing information, and making
decisions without those decisions being the direct and inevitable
consequence of external input or quantum randomness. The decisions may
be *based* on the external input, but they are not the inevitable and
deterministic consequence of it. The computer/brain might be able to
use its own internal logic to make choices based on the input, but in a
way that from the outside it's impossible to predict which choises will
be made.

  Can such closed system exist in the physical world? Could that idea break
some laws of physics (eg. something along the lines that new information
cannot be generated in a closed system or something)?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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