[pinkyand]

I think good understanding of conciousness comes from the meditative tradition, and their definition for it is "the part of the brain that observes the other parts".

BTW we've already implemented consciousness in a robot: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/automaton-robots-b... and it's useful. But AFAIK, i don't think it's used in any commercial system, although that's the kind of thing a commercial company won't advertise.

[dominotw]

>Droids met the challenge of perceiving their self-image and reflecting on their own thoughts as part an effort to develop robots that are more adaptable in unpredictable situations

Who exactly is this entity doing the reflecting? .Isn't this a fundamental misunderstanding of what 'consciousness' means?

[pinkyand]

As a practical matter, especially for the robot ,it might not matter who is observing. The fact that one can observe oneself enables further capabilities like better feedback.

And by the way i think this observing robot has(or can have) an internal definition of self, and an observer beyond the self. It seems possible.