While reading an NPR story about Watson I came across this in the comments section:

"Daren Daniels (Pointless) wrote:

We, like Watson, manipulate symbolic mental constructs throughout our daily lives. But what sets us apart from Watson (as well as all computers) is the "substrate" in which those constructs reside. With Watson, that "substrate" is silicon based. It's a non-dynamic "substrate" if you will. With us, it's chemically based. The symbolic construct influences the chemistry and the chemistry influences the construct.



If we watch a sad movie, the mental construct triggers a chemical change within us, causing us to become emotional and cry. (Construct influencing chemistry). When we dream, our brain chemistry causes our brain to associate the emotion with some kind of related mental construct or dream (Chemistry influencing mental construct). I do believe, when we dream, the chemistry comes first followed by the related mental construct (our brain trying to make sense of the emotion).



Computers have no interaction between the symbolism and the substrate in which those symbols reside (accept for maybe heat). I think it could be possible that, somehow, consciousness is a manifestation of the interaction between symbolic mental constructs and chemistry."

awesome.