varying levels of consciousness

[Lueadar]

I can definitely tell you've given all of this a lot of thought. Mostly what I've written in this thread is the product of my own meandering reasoning process, and it's nice to get some insightful feedback.

I've often thought that if we are simply autonomous computers that can reproduce, then the culmination of artificial intelligence technology will be artificial life (most probably more advanced and capable of survival that we are).