I argue here that consciousness can be engineered. The claim that functional consciousness can be engineered has been persuasively put forth in regards to first-person functional consciousness; robots, for instance, can recognize colors, though there is still much debate about details of this sort of consciousness. Such consciousness has now become one of the meanings of the term phenomenal consciousness (e.g., as used by Franklin and Baars). Yet, we extend the argument beyond the tradition of behaviorist or functional reductive views on consciousness that still predominate within cognitive science. If Nagel-Chalmers-Block-style non-reductive naturalism about first-person consciousness (h-consciousness) holds true, then, eventually we should be able to understand how such consciousness operates and how it gets produced (this is not the same as bridging the explanatory gap or solving Chalmers’s hard problem of consciousness). If so, the consciousness it involves can in principle be engineered.
Transhumanities are designed as a multidisciplinary approach that transcends the limitations not only of specific disciplines, but also of the human species; these are primarily humanities for advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI leading to AGI). The view that philosophy, ethics and related disciplines pertain to all rational beings, not solely to humans, is essential to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. This approach turns out to be practical at the epoch of advanced AI. Many authors ponder how a kernel of ethical respect for human beings can be built into Artificial General Intelligence by the time it becomes a reality. I argue that the task requires, among other components, inculcating the core of the Humanities into advanced AI.
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