In the ordinary way of conceiving things, we regard consciousness as having individual centers—you and me and each raccoon. We imagine it arises at birth and subsides at death. Since it thus seemingly comes and goes, the issue of whether it can arise in a machine certainly seems reasonable. But if consciousness is correlative with the cosmos, then the question defaults to an inquiry into the entirety of existence. Tackling this is the same task as pondering the overarching universe. Though a valid and venerable topic, all methodologies employing symbolism limited to representing individual
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