Specifically, consciousness is self-referential information processing. As I said in... Okay, looks like I didn't say that in this thread. Oops.
Makes your entire post moot, but that's not your fault. I've gone over this in considerable detail in past threads, but I'm happy to cover it again.
Look at it this way. A thinking entity needs the following:
Input - sensory data of some sort
Memory - the ability to memorise past input and output, and hence to learn
Logic - the ability to make decisions based on a mixture of input and memory
Output - some way of interacting with the world
I call this simple creature (which can be simulated with about 50 transistors) aware, but not self-aware. Dennett describes a thermostat as conscious, but I describe it as merely aware.
To be conscious, one must also be aware of oneself. That is, you need feedback from the logic circuits to themselves. Now we're looking at maybe 100 transistors.
This creature (or circuit) can think and feel and act and learn, and it can reflect on the process by which it does this. Not very much, mind you; it only has about 8 bits of memory, total. But it can do it.
We have a whole bunch more RAM and logic circuits, but self-reference is what makes us different from, say, a clock.
So basically, what you're arguing is that conscious awareness is a relatively simple technical feat. The requisite would have to be the four basic requirements you've listed plus the ability for this computational system to feed back on itself. One could easily construct a present day machine built to the specifications you mentioned above and it would meet your criteria for consciousness, yes?
At first glance these are very reasonable criteria. I think its genuinely sufficient for any reasonable definition of intelligence. I would even go far enough to tentatively accept this as a reasonable criteria for consciousness as well. The only problem is that while it works as a model for cognition and general intelligence it does not work as a definition of
lucid experience. There are atleast a couple glaring problems with the definition you gave.
One is that sleeping or otherwise
unconscious humans meet the criteria you have set. In fact, every living organism does. Memory, the processing of external and internal feed back, and biological/behavioral response (i.e. output) are all central to living processes and they perform these functions better than any artificial construct made to date. Whether one is conscious or not, their brain and body are performing the actions that you say should define consciousness.
Another major flaw with this definition is that it does not explain the
qualitative experience of perception. Its one thing for a system to intelligently respond to, say, different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum or kinetic vibrations. Its quite another to say that it experiences them as what we perceive as
colors or
sounds. What
is a taste, an emotion, or sensation
really? Its already clear that humans and other organisms must continually process information concerning their environments and internal states but, atleast for humans like us, this does not always equate with
qualitatively experiencing this information input. Its fairly simple to describe how an organism approaches positive sensory stimuli or retreats from the negative (such at the automatic response to pull back from a hot object) but it does not explain why or how one should qualitatively
feel that stimuli as 'pleasure' or 'pain'.
Also, it seems that without realizing it, you have made a stronger argument for idealism than any of the idealists have in these threads so far. If even an inanimate object or system could be considered, in some sense,
conscious what possible objection could one bring to seriously dispute the idealist position. If every physical process is computational in nature and even an inanimate object like a thermostat or clock can be described as
aware how in the world can you in the next breath seriously argue with the idealists. You positions are essentially identical in everything but names.
