Description

Consciousness Studies/The PhilosophicalProblem/Machine Consciousness

Elementary Information and Information Systems Theory

When one physical thing interacts with another a change in"state" occurs. For instance, when a beam of white light, composedof a full spectrum of colours is reflected from a blue surface allcolours except blue are absorbed and the light changes from whiteto blue. When this blue light interacts with an eye it causes bluesensitive cones to undergo a chemical change of state which causesthe membrane of the cone to undergo an electrical change of stateetc. The number of distinguishable states that a system can possessis the amount of information that can be encoded by the system.