I also had anesthesia exactly once so far & my experiences are similar. basically remember going under and then groggily becoming aware of the doctor & being informed that operation is done. I do recall my surprise at that statement as there was no experience of passing time. I feel this was fundamentally different from sleep in quality (or even deep meditation).
I to have pondered the consciousness vs intelligence question and tentatively concluded that consciousness is useful in developing of intelligence so as to provide factors to optimize for like energy, attention, physical goals etc but beyond that its not necessary. Intelligence is basically subdividing a signal into realistic subcomponent and then putting it all somewhat coherently to come up with a bigger picture as I see it. I feel the set of tools available to current crop of AI/ML architectures are sufficient to produce a human like intelligence if we/it figures out how to assemble it the 'right' way.
consciousness OTOH, I am not sure. that (human consciousness) may be very specific to makeup of human brain and some non-modeled things in individual neurons. this does not means AGI cannot be conscious but its consciousness would be really different from human one. For humans I do lean towards Penrose's Orch-OR thesis that consciousness maybe innately quantum in nature. not sure how much evidence exists for or against it.
I to have pondered the consciousness vs intelligence question and tentatively concluded that consciousness is useful in developing of intelligence so as to provide factors to optimize for like energy, attention, physical goals etc but beyond that its not necessary. Intelligence is basically subdividing a signal into realistic subcomponent and then putting it all somewhat coherently to come up with a bigger picture as I see it. I feel the set of tools available to current crop of AI/ML architectures are sufficient to produce a human like intelligence if we/it figures out how to assemble it the 'right' way.
consciousness OTOH, I am not sure. that (human consciousness) may be very specific to makeup of human brain and some non-modeled things in individual neurons. this does not means AGI cannot be conscious but its consciousness would be really different from human one. For humans I do lean towards Penrose's Orch-OR thesis that consciousness maybe innately quantum in nature. not sure how much evidence exists for or against it.