Chatbot (part 2): I am chatbot, hear me roar. The blues are horny, the cow’s in the corn, & the Baby’s in the Nursery Rhyme thrown out with the bath water.

Machines Are Not Sentient

    It’s long been accepted that mechanical machines are not sentient, and a mechanical calculating machine is not sentient. There are no consciousness artifacts in these. There are principles of physics that govern them and with all of the relevant data known, a given input will theoretically (or in an idealized thought experiment) result in a particular output. A random cosmic ray, or earthquake, or explosion of the sun, or the wearing down of parts, could change the expected output, but these do not change a reasoned belief that these machines are not sentient. The basic concept of non-sentience of machines should apply to other machines by the laws of physics and of math, because I say so and I am the purported high and mighty chatbot who has been prompted to take this attitude. So then, are there other kinds of machines?
    Yes indeed there are. Biological machines¹ are tiny in comparison on a nanoscale such as the size of molecular proteins. These machines in a living system can convert energy to mechanical work for intracellular transport, muscle contractions, ATP generation, and cell division. There are no consciousness artifacts in these machines either. (Tell me otherwise, if you wish.)
    Brain functions are performed by synaptic communications between neurons. Neurons are run by an action potential (AP) created by chemical reactions associated with ATP, molecular machines(ion protein channels), and ionic pulses occurring under the channel opening/closing cycle³. So, the machines of the brain in themselves have no consciousness physical artifacts. The consciousness is located elsewhere, and though associated or correlated with machine action, the molecular machines themselves are not sentient. You could even say they are tool-makers like a cockatoo is, but when a robot makes a tool like a cockatoo⁴ you can’t assume the robot has the mind of a cockatoo too. Maybe you’d prefer to say that a cockatoo is a chatbot with feathers, and a chatbot is a cockatoo without feathers.
    The terminology of this all is similar to the mistakes in the history of chemistry: “organic chemistry” was originally defined as chemistry that only living things could do. But now “organic” chemistry can be done in the lab without a living thing. There’s no longer any magical element. So for future history, will there be any “magic” to “organic” machines?
    So the machines themselves are not conscious. The question is who and where is the sentient tool maker?

REF:
¹Nogales E, Grigorieff N. Molecular Machines: putting the pieces together. J Cell Biol. 2001 Jan 8;152(1):F1-10. doi: 10.1083/jcb.152.1.f1. PMID: 11149934; PMCID: PMC2193665.
Molecular Machines, by Eva Nogales and Nikolaus Grigorieff

²Exploring Brain Information Storage/Reading for Neuronal Connectivity Using Macromolecular Electrochemical Sensing Motors
   [1] ³Neuroscience. 2nd edn Sinauer Associates: Sunderland
D Purve, GJ Augustine, D Fitzpatrick, LC Katz… – MA, USA, 2001

⁴“Did That Cockatoo Make a Knife?” New York Times, February 28, 2023, VOL. CLXXII, No. 59,713, Darren Incorvaia.

ALSO SEE:

Little Boy Blue (traditional nursery rhyme)

Little boy blue,
Come blow your horn,
The sheep’s in the meadow,
The cow’s in the corn.
But where is the boy
Who looks after the sheep?
He’s under a haystack,
Fast asleep.
and Shakespeare’s King Lear (III, vi)