Can machines ever wake up? Or is conciousness for we sacks of meat only?
- Adam Spencer
- 10 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Philosopher Ned Block and physicist Sean Carroll debate whether AI can ever be conscious or if minds require meat-based biology.
Two great minds ask if consciousness needs biological meat.
Over summer I had the joy of contemplating one of the deepest questions going around; as AI continues to explode, and quantum comes online, can machines ever become conscious?
Even better, I just sat back and listened to two geniuses discuss the topic.
Philosopher Ned Block, one of the world’s leading thinkers on consciousness, joined Sean Carroll on his Mindscape podcast to dive deep into what makes us human, and whether your mobile phone can ever get there.
So what’s this all about?
At its heart, this is a deceptively simple question: does consciousness require biology?
Or, to put it more bluntly, does a mind need to be meat-based?
We already know machines can calculate, recognise faces, write essays and pass exams. But is doing intelligent things the same as experiencing them? Is there something about living tissue, neurons, chemistry and evolution that silicon could never replicate?
Even framing the question turns out to be hard. Consciousness in humans is still one of the most stubborn mysteries in science and philosophy. We know that we are conscious, but pinning down what that actually means remains elusive.
As my mum always used to say*,
“If you think about it, using your brain to think about what it means to be able to think with your brain, is always going to be hard!”
The meat of the argument
This is a fascinating discussion and like any chat Sean Carroll has, it goes deep in places, but in a nutshell here is the meat of the discussion … pun fully intended!
For Block, consciousness is not just about information processing or behaviour. A system could act intelligent, respond perfectly, even claim to have feelings, yet still lack subjective experience.
Block’s concern is that some of what are called ‘functionalist’ AI arguments quietly assume that if something functions like a mind, it is a mind.
Block argues that biology may matter in ways we don’t yet understand, and that consciousness might depend on the physical stuff doing the thinking, not just the abstract computation.
Block distinguishes between what consciousness does (access, report, control) and what it is (the felt, phenomenal “what it’s like”), and suggests that the latter may be tied to specifically biological processes.
“We don’t have a good theory of consciousness, and pretending we do is a mistake.”— Ned Block
Carroll is sympathetic but pushes back gently. He agrees consciousness is mysterious but cautions against declaring biology special too quickly. After all, physics does not recognise “meat” as a fundamental category. If consciousness arises from physical processes, then in principle other physical systems might instantiate it. Carroll’s stance is not that machines are conscious, but that we should stay open to the possibility until we understand the mechanisms better.
“The universe doesn’t care what it’s made of.”— Sean Carroll
And, of course, there are many thinkers who go further than Carroll, claiming tha machine consciousness is highly likely, perhaps inevitable.
Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind argues, and I agree, that we will one day have AI systems so indistinguishable from a conscious being we simply won’t know whether they are ‘alive’ or not.
Another wrinkle
As discussed in previous #NerdNews, we are already entering an era where computational hardware is being integrated directly into human brains. Brain–computer interfaces are no longer science fiction.
They are being developed to help paraplegics walk, people who have lost speech communicate, and the blind regain forms of vision, including systems developed by companies such as Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk.
This raises a subtler question. If these devices become tightly coupled to neural circuits that are already conscious, do they merely support that consciousness, or do they begin to participate in it?
Rather than an entirely electronic system suddenly “waking up”, might increasingly complex brain–computer hybrids edge toward machine-augmented consciousness gradually, as artificial components become functionally indispensable to conscious experience?
Philosophers and neuroscientists are only just beginning to explore what such hybrid minds would even mean.
Food for thought
I’d love to know your thoughts on the likelihood of machine-based consciousness, the ethical implications of such a world, and anything else occupying your (for now entirely human!) thoughts.
To listen to the amazing Mindscape podcast just click here:
-Adam S
* Actually they are my words. I’ve never asked my mum about machine vs meat-based consciousness.
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