Consciousness

    If one could create a machine with a part corresponding to every cell in the brain and with the same connections between neurons, would that machine be conscious?  Would that machine feel pain, joy, love, hate?  Would such a machine have a will of its own.  Since we don't understand consciousness we don't know the answer to that.  Consciousness and material objects appear to be separate except in living things.  It is probable that no matter how you connect wires and electronic chips together you will not get a conscious machine. 

    One can draw an analogy between the relationship between the brain and consciousness and between a musical instrument and sound.  Let us consider a piano placed in a sealed room and the air removed from that room.  We could hit any of the keys but no sound would come out.  Now lets restore the air to the room.   Now we get sounds.  If we hit several keys at once we get harmonies.  If we hit them in sequence we get melodies.  The brain may act similarly.   Different parts of the brain may play different conscious feelings and together these parts create thoughts and more complex feelings.  A computer can be thought of a piano in a vacuum.  It may be analogous to the brain in many ways but the connection to consciousness is missing.