... but he kept hammering away at the questions and inspired many people. Learning which paths are unpromising helps everyone discover the paths that are promising.
I think we're well into the fuzzy grey areas of "artificial intelligence" now which has led many to claim, with true human prejudice, that if a machine can do it, then it must not be intelligence or consciousness, which is the same fucking prejudice we've had about the other animal species we share the planet with, who are very clearly conscious intelligent beings. (Are any machines "beings" yet? I don't know.)
Douglas Hofstadter is one of my favorite explorers of the topic. I also think the approach Roger Penrose is almost certainly wrong, approaching what a few people call "woo" here on DU.
My coldest intellectual self doesn't believe there is anything such thing as consciousness or intelligence, at least not the way we imagine it. We're all simply part of a greater ecology and can't be separated out of it. Of course, that's why we must be kind to one another, and respect one another, if only because the greater universe doesn't give a damn what we think, or recognize what we do as "thinking."
Consciousness and intelligence are simply superstitious and archaic cosmology, just as the "Four Elements" of Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire were.
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