On the Non-Computability of Consciousness

Abstract

The chapter will consider the problem of the computability of consciousness and provide evidence from different fields that supports the position that it is non-computable. If consciousness were computable then the present, which includes sentient agents, is completely determined by the past, and so one can emulate it and, therefore, conscious or sentient machines will be built. The arguments in favor of the non-computability of consciousness are: first-person accounts of creativity, the fact that mathematical logic is associated with incompleteness, and that consciousness appears to have the capacity to halt any computation in the brain. The non-computability position is consistent with the Orthodox Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory, in which the subject and the object are forever separated by the Heisenberg Cut, which, in turn, implies that materiality and consciousness are like two sides of a coin. The question of how the two can interact, as in controlling the quantum state through observation, will be discussed. Larger philosophical questions related to the problem of consciousness will be considered and assumptions behind the building blocks of reality as in space, time, and matter will be examined together with recent results from logic that are relevant to this discussion.