“Not yet, maybe,” Gusterson said darkly. “Not this model. Fay, I’m serious about bugs thinking. Or if they don’t exactly think, they feel. They’ve got an interior drama. An inner glow. They’re conscious. For that matter, Fay, I think all your really complex electronic computers are conscious too.”
“Quit kidding, Gussy.”
“Who’s kidding?”
“You are. Computers simply aren’t alive.”
“What’s alive? A word. I think computers are conscious, at least while they’re operating. They’ve got that inner glow of awareness. They sort of … well … meditate.”
“Gussy, computers haven’t got any circuits for meditating. They’re not programmed for mystical lucubrations. They’ve just got circuits for solving the problems they’re on.”
“Okay, you admit they’ve got problem-solving circuits—like a man has. I say if they’ve got the equipment for being conscious, they’re conscious. What has wings, flies.”
“Including stuffed owls and gilt eagles and dodoes—and wood-burning airplanes?”
“Maybe, under some circumstances. There was a wood-burning airplane. Fay,” Gusterson continued, wagging his wrists for emphasis, “I really think computers are conscious. They just don’t have any way of telling us that they are. Or maybe they don’t have any reason to tell us, like the little Scotch boy who didn’t say a word until he was fifteen and was supposed to be deaf and dumb.”
“Why didn’t he say a word?”