Week 7: Neuroscience + Art

Something that really sparks my attention from this week’s material is the discussion about the question posed of whether computers have consciousness or not. I believe this question is something that is still hard to comprehend as of now, but if the technological world keeps making the rapid advancements that it has been in the recent years, this is a topic that will be very interesting to look at. I think that the idea of consciousness is pretty unclear, but for some reason I have a hard time believing that anything human built machine will ever be “conscious”.

I think the reason that this idea of technology and consciousness is arising a lot lately is because the research on the brain is relatively new. As discussed in the Lecture video, the technology to study the brain has only been recently discovered, so much of the recent past has been devoted to researching how the brain functions. I thought it was especially interesting learning about Suzanne Anker and her work with sea sponges. These sponges are said to share 70% of their genetic makeup with humans – which creates a platform to study these more simple creatures when investigating the more complicated brains of humans. I also think that the more technological advances that occur, the more science will be used as inspiration for art. The more knowledge gained, the more options that artists have to choose from to base their work off of. This interestingly symbiotic relationship is formed because, yet again, we see how science and art are greatly intertwined.

References

Uconlineprogram. "Neuroscience-pt1.mov." YouTube. YouTube, 17 May 2012. Web. 21 May 2017.

Uconlineprogram. "Neuroscience-pt2.mov." YouTube. YouTube, 17 May 2012. Web. 21 May 2017.

Dld. "Molecular Art and Digital Disortion - DLD Blog." DLD Conference. N.p., 12 July 2012. Web. 21 May 2017.

Arasan, Mani, and Jeff Cush. "Brain & Consciousness." Artificial Brain and Artificial Intelligence. N.p., 25 Dec. 2016. Web. 21 May 2017.

DNewsChannel. "Could We Upload Our Consciousness To A Computer?" YouTube. YouTube, 15 June 2015. Web. 21 May 2017.

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