Hello Asguard,
"You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and your free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."
Thus begins the co-discoverer of DNA and Nobel Prize recipient Francis Crick, in his book, An Astonishing Hypothesis.
Now, please consider a mechanical flip-flop (neuron, switch, logic element...). An early pioneer of computers, Konrad Zuse, built computers using simple notched mechanical pins as logical elements. I also remember a short article that appeared some years ago in Scientific American Magazine describing a similar computer built of "Tinker-Toys".
So I would ask you to mentally construct a vast interconnected Tinker-Toy brain using one Tinker-Toy logic element for each star in our Galaxy (roughly a hundred billion). Fashion as well, feedback loops to interconnect Tinker-Toy logic elements, but go one step further to allow new feedback loops to form as a result of internal logic conditions. In other words, allow the network connections themselves to evolve. Attach a vast power source to drive all these hundred billion logic elements and let it commence to function.
Given Crick's quote from above, I've little doubt that this vast neural network of Tinker-Toys would eventually evolve thoughts as complex and refined as my own. It might come to know love and hope, and to accumulate a personal memory. Idle portions of the network might occasionally dream. It might eventually come to wonder "what is it all about"? The conclusion is astonishing yet theoretically plausible; advanced sentience from a collection of Tinker-Toy sticks!
A mind, whether made of meat as in my own brain or Tinker-Toys, is little more than a sufficiently complex array of interconnected logic elements. A single neuron has no more complex "thought" than a mere "off" or "on". However, the ability to think grows with the complexity of the interconnected network. I can't tell you the precise level of complexity that a machine requires to attain conscious thought, be it biological, mechanical, or electrical, anymore than I could tell you at what point the repeated splitting of the single-celled zygote becomes a human.
A sufficiently complex interconnected array of neurons transcends the thinking ability of a single neuron. This is surely a case where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Asguard wonders if the acquisition of an infinite number of such nodes in a neural network might make a similar transcendental leap; to become a sort of Supreme Being. I'd like to point out that the concept of "infinity" properly belongs to mathematics rather than physics. Even so, mathematicians treat the notion of infinity with a great deal of respect in order to avoid falling into logical traps. Philosophers are wise to take note! We too easily utter the word "infinity" without comprehending what such a concept implies.
Asguard, the topic of "god" is something of a non-starter with me. It's a catch-all term we use to convince ourselves that we understand something simply because we can put a name to it...God, The Messiah, Allah, Yahweh, The Unmoved Mover... The name means something different to everyone. It can mean anything and everything, therefore, it means nothing.
It's imperative that we remember that metaphysics is not physics. Metaphysics is speculation. I enjoy such speculation as much as the next guy. However, unless we agree to define concepts at the beginning and as they arise in our discussion, we end up chasing our tails in a succession of useless debates. We end up not with philosophy or science; we end up with theology. We end up by debating how many angels might dance on the head of a pin.
Science forever attempts to produce generalized laws to explain diverse physical phenomena. It relies upon the idea that seemingly random phenomena are based upon simpler explanations. One is naturally lead to wonder if everything might one day be explained by an idea so simple as to be contained in one sentence, or in a single equation? We presently toy with the notion that the Universe might have sprung forth from a near singlularity of immense density and unbelievably small dimensions. Is it possible that an explanation for this universe might be similarly compact?
Occasionally we hear jokes that a physicist has stumbled across the ultimate explanation; that it is the number "7", etc. It's mildly funny because we all expect an explanation of something to be somewhat enlightening. To say the answer to everything is the number "7" tells us nothing. It is no different than saying the answer is "god", and not much worse than saying the universe is a result of a quantum statistical fluxtuation, etc. Our ultimate answer has to be correct, but more importantly it has to convince and satisfy us.
Michael