internet and consciousness

[robin walker]

In article <1392 at percep.demon.co.uk>
           rmallott at percep.demon.co.uk "rmallott" writes:

> In article <3grin5$m2 at ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> Gerald McNerney
> <mcnerney at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> 
> > Is the internet ever capable of attaining consciousness?  How can we 
> > tell if it has?  Should we try to make developments in the internet that 
> > will make it more likely to become conscious?
> > [deletion]
> > Any ideas? - gm
> 
> Given the unsettled debate about human consciousness, it  might be more 
> +++++stuff deleted+++++++
> Maybe the stage of the Internet's nervous evolution or development as
> a world-brain is at that reached by a lowly organism, still with no very
> noticeable central organisation.  Or this may understate what has been
> achieved. In any case comparison of the way the Internet has progressed
> and is progressing may stimulate ideas about analogies or homologies with
> the evolutionary process by which central nervous systems developed. From
> this angle, it will interesting to see over the next few years how the
> Internet changes and complexifies.
> 
> 
> Robin Allott     email:  rmallott at percep.demon.co.uk
> 
The Internet is already a conscious being of a higher order of 
intelligence than hitherto seen on this planet. Try attacking it and see how
effectively it will defend itself! 

Although it is tempting to imagine its responses are a simply a product of the
intelligent agents (humans) of which it is comprised, in terms of the 
Internet as a being we are acting as simple neurons taking multiple inuts and 
generating a resultant output whilst using (comparatively) an insignificant 
amount of intelligence.

When a widely acceptable definition of consciousness is established, the 
Internet will be found to fit it.
-- 
Robin Walker