Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart) / quote 10 of 171
Intelligence derives from being conscious
Within contemporary cognitive science there is a blurry and awkward line between intelligence and consciousness. However, it seems clear to me that much of our intelligence derives from the fact that we are conscious. This is despite the fact that it is well known that most of our brain’s activity remains unconscious. To use the computer AI metaphor, we can to a certain degree inspect and change our code to improve our own behavior. This is in fact borne out by current neuroscience; the organization of our cortex is in constant flux. Rats are conscious too, but we would not claim that they are very intelligent relative to humans. The assumption in artificial intelligence is that a computer must first achieve intelligence in order to become conscious.