The Cognitive Approach to Conscious Machines

This book argues for the possibility of constructing a conscious machine as an emulation of the cognitive processes of the brain rather than through classic AI or neural networks. It would have to be both non-numeric and meaning-processing. The discussion is wide-ranging but it begins from the dubious premise that the brain is itself a machine - this allows for a certain conceptual elegance but not for their equivalence, which is simply assumed - as my daughter Charlotte said when I explained this to her - 'but the brain makes machines!'.