In every generation, some advanced piece of machinery comes to seem like a model of the human mind. When the written word was the cutting edge in information storage, Plato had Socrates compare the human mind to a wax writing tablet in his “Theaetetus.” In the era of the steam engine, Sigmund Freud began to think of the mind as a dynamic pressure chamber in which repressed energy returns with gathered force. And for the past several decades, we’ve come to picture the mind as a computer, hardwired to run certain kinds of software.
But by using machines as metaphors for our minds, we fall prey to the illusion that our minds are nothing more than machines. So it’s not surprising that now, when the possibilities of AI are enthralling Silicon Valley, those who think programs can become conscious are trying to tell us that consciousness is just a program.
