A Thoughtful Experiment: Building a Self-aware Computer.

Imagine an ordinary computer tower to start with. Let’s now imagine what it would need to be in some rudimentary sense aware of itself.
 
We can start with the fact that the computer has an inside chamber that heats up due to just being electrically on and operating. All computers have internal fans and physical means to dissipate this heat since there is a need for an optimum level of heat in the chamber. Too much heat can cause some level of damage to the long-term optimum workings of the device.
 
So, imagine that we build an internal thermometer into the machine and a feedback mechanism to notice and modify the internal fans. We create a software program that has the parameter that for long-term optimum efficiency, it is told that a specific level of temperature is, in fact, optimum, and the software can slow down and speed up the fans; maybe we build this one with multiple fans that it can control to try to maintain this optimum level. Let’s also give this computer the ability to store its prior temperature states in its memory to record its own internal environment.
 
Next, let’s give it a way to monitor its internal batteries and the capacity to notice the ability of that battery to hold a charge. Then let’s give it the capacity to control the flow of electricity into itself with its own capacity to regulate that flow of electricity, shutting it off or drawing on power even when the machine is put into either traditional ‘sleep mode’ or ‘power off mode’. Thus, it can operate autonomously concerning its need for optimum battery capacity and its ability to maintain that battery so it can optimally store power over time.
 
Let’s give it the ability to store a record of all its internal operations in its memory. Perhaps a way to monitor any access to its CPU or any of its hard drives. A way to recognize when a user is using the machine and what is being used – the keyboard, the mouse, the monitor, internet access, etc. as the user uses the computer to do whatever the user would do with that computer. Let’s give it away to recall past usages and experiences of past usages. Now all this internal monitoring and recall would be something the computer can access autonomously.
 
If we did all this, we built a computer that not only does what an ordinary computer does, but we gave it the capacity to monitor and store memory of its own internal working and build into the software parameters concerning desirable long-term temperature, battery, etc. So, it essentially is told, ‘X level of operation is optimal and best for long-term usage’ and thus, monitoring its own operation could contribute to that optimal usage and operation.
 
I maintain that if we build such a machine, we have given it some order of self-awareness.
 
What we have given it is, precisely and specifically by definition, an awareness of itself – its own internal operations and existence. It would be the very rough equivalent of the kind of self-awareness our cats, dogs, and other animals have. Does it have ‘consciousness’? I’m not sure. Perhaps it does have consciousness on a level similar to the level that animals have consciousness; perhaps that is what it means to say an animal has consciousness.
 
I believe I am thus describing how we have some basic level of self-awareness. We can say we are self-aware because we can and do know how we feel physically. We know when we are hungry, cold, tired, need sleep, food, etc. We know when we have over-eaten and exceeded our need and capacity to take in food. Well, perhaps that is something that we humans have not really learned how to do. Though we, in principle, should be able to do this.
 
When we have done all this, have we given it ‘life’? Is this computer now a living thing? Perhaps it is now.
 
So, what do you think?