SYNTHETIC SENTIENCE:  THE EMERGENCE OF COMPUTER AWARENESS THROUGH EVOLVING COMPLEXITY IN NANOTECHNOLOGY

 

 

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO

THE FACULTY OF THE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

OF COLUMBIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

 

BY

PHILIP I. MOYNIHAN

 

DECLARATION OF AUTHENTICITY

 

I declare that all material presented to Columbia Commonwealth University is my own work, or fully and specifically acknowledged wherever adapted from other sources.  I understand that if, at any time it is shown that I have significantly misrepresented material presented to the University, any degree or credits awarded to me on the basis of that material may be revoked.

 

_____________________   23 Sep 02

 

W. Jeffery Hurst, Ph.D. – Faculty Mentor –    _____________________   _______

 

Naomi Lichtenberg, Ph.D. – Dean, CCWU, AS –    _____________________   _______

 

Dean's Council Member   _____________________   _______

 

Abstract

 

From its inception the computer has inspired the human imagination to give it brain-like qualities, and aggressive advances in nanotechnology over the past decade are bringing this dream closer to reality.  As one follows the growth of the electronic computer as it morphed from the power-hungry ENIAC of the 1940s to the awesome capability of today's laptops, one can immediately see the significance of electronic miniaturization and enhanced complex circuitry in this evolution.  The microprocessor, coupled with miniaturization enabled by Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology, sparked the "Moore's Law" progression of doubling compute power every eighteen months.  But as "top-down" miniaturization reaches its lower limit, research into "bottom-up" nanoelectronics is opening a vast new paradigm for the concept of small.  Nanoelectronic components will come to comprise millions of interconnected devices made up of self-assembled molecular structures built from individual atoms.  Inspired in part by the economic drive to produce more capable lower-cost computers, nanoelectronics by their size and function will also introduce biologically inspired advantages not available on the macroscale.  The drive toward greater computer autonomy in the meantime calls for greater decision-making capacity as the computer senses and reacts to external inputs.  Many such decisions will require a modification of behavior in order to adapt to new demands from the environment.  The closed-form Von Neumann digital computer with its serial processing and complex algorithms is less likely to be as successful in this transformation as is the neural processor, the computational paradigm selected by Nature.  As continued nanotechnology development produces more capable neural processors, a state of complexity will emerge that can no longer be represented by classical reductionism.  Instead, the new system will begin to display characteristics as a whole that are not predicted from its specific parts.

 

This thesis hypothesizes that the resulting macrosystems composed of a vast number of self-assembled nanoelectronic structures will come to possess a state of complexity sufficient to lead to an emerging sentience.  One could expect these nanostructures to be made up of countless single-electron transistors responsive to quantum effects designed so that they produce self-organizing quantum-coherent states.  There is strong evidence that an ordered decoherence of tens of milliseconds will produce consciousness.  Information research into the recent developments in nanoelectronics and the new science of complexity is applied to very current discoveries in the field of consciousness to support this hypothesis.  Following biological parallels in this regard, this thesis develops the likely necessary conditions for synthetic sentience to emerge from a man-made system.  Comparisons are made with the neuronal content of natural organisms as a means of determining the probable quantity of neurons and connectivities likely to be sufficient for the onset of sentience.  The necessary conditions presented in this thesis are not meant to be exhaustive, as laboratory experiments in this field may identify others.  These conditions do, however, represent a point of departure toward accomplishing synthetic sentience, the first step in the direction of realizing truly man-made higher intelligence.  A description of a synthetic-sentient system is offered, along with a brief speculation of possible consequences of human coexistence with synthetic beings of higher intelligence.

 

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - My Thesis

 

Introduction

1-1

Complexity

1-4

Computer Technology

1-5

Consciousness and Sentience

1-6

 

Chapter 2 - The Promise of Nanotechnology

 

Definition

2-1

Nanoelectronics

2-3

Microprocessors

2-3

Progression in Electronic Miniaturization

2-5

CMOS Fabrication

2-8

Physical Limitations

2-15

"Molecular Wires"

2-17

Size Comparison

2-24

The Future of Nanoelectronics

2-25

 

Chapter 3 - The Dynamic World of Computer Technology

 

Overview of Computer Development

3-1

     History

3-1

     Post World War II

3-4

The Digital Computer

3-12

The Neuron

3-14

The Neural Computer

3-16

Future Trends

3-29

 

Chapter 4 - The New Science of Complexity

 

Birth of a New Field

4-1

Limits of Reductionism

4-2

Wholism

4-6

Complexity and Chaos

4-8

Characteristics of Complexity

4-13

Self-Assembly

4-24

 

Chapter 5 - The Wonder of Consciousness

 

Scope

5-1

Characteristics of Consciousness

5-3

Quantum Consciousness

5-14

Onset of Sentience

5-21

 

Chapter 6 - The Synthesis

 

Summary of Ideas Presented

6-1

Conditions Necessary for Threshold Sentience

6-4

Characteristics of a Sentient Computer

6-8

Speculations of Occurrence

6-11

Ramifications of Non-Biological Sentience

6-12

     Social

6-13

     Economic

6-16

     Political

6-17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

List of Figures

Chapter 1

 

Figure 1.1.  Interposition of necessary conditions upon nanotechnology and complexity to produce computer sentience.

 

1-2

 

Chapter 2

 

Figure 2.1.  Evolution of integration density and minimum feature size of transistor packing density experienced for both memory and logic chips.

 

2-6

Figure 2.2.  The steady progression of Moore's Law continues to double microprocessor capability with each new generation.

 

2-7

Figure 2.3.  Simplified process flow of major fabrication steps for an n-well CMOS integrated circuit.

 

2-9

Figure 2.4.  Process steps required to etch the desired silicon-dioxide pattern for a single transistor.

 

2-11

Figure 2.5 (a).  First series of steps in the process flow used in fabrication an n-type metal-oxide semiconductor transistor on p-type silicon.

 

2-13

Figure 2.5 (b).  Last series of steps in the process flow used in fabrication an n-type metal-oxide semiconductor transistor on p-type silicon.

 

2-14

Figure 2.6.  Metzger's molecular rectifier.

2-18

Figure 2.7.  "Tour wires."

2-19

Figure 2.8.  Polyphenylene molecule with resonant-tunneling diode configuration.

2-21

Figure 2.9.  Typical configuration of a carbon nanotube.

2-23

 

Chapter 3

 

Figure 3.1.  Schematic diagram of "Von Neumann" computer.

3-13

Figure 3.2.  Depiction of a typical neuron.

3-15

Figure 3.3.  An artificial neuron.

3-18

 

Figure 3.4.  Depiction of simple typical neural network showing inputs, outputs, and one hidden layer.

 

 

3-21

Figure 3.5.  Two versions of the Hopfield neural network showing each node connected to every other node.

3-23

 

Chapter 4

 

Figure 4.1.  One concept of the quantification of complexity.

4-13

Figure 4.2.  Depiction of Equation 6 for three widely varying cases.

4.24

 

Chapter 5

 

Figure 5.1.  Thalamocortical system; the thalamus and its relationship to other brain components.

 

5.7

Figure 5.2.  Neuron with its distribution of microtubules.

5-17

Figure 5.3.  Segment of microtubule structure showing tubulin composition consisting of alpha and beta monomers.

 

5-18

Figure 5.4.  Brain and body weight comparison for various species as determined by Bonin.

 

5-27

Figure 5.5.  Depiction of neural connectivity as a function of cortex-to-thalamus ratio as one indicator as to where sentience onset may be expected to occur.

 

5-30

Figure 5.6.  Neurons possessed by select species.

5-31

 

Chapter 6

 

Figure 6.1.  Schematic diagram of sentient computer.

6-11

 

 

List of Tables

 

Table 5-1.  Encephalization Quotient for Various Mammal Species

5-28