For anyone seriously interested in this question I suggest you read Suddenly Psychic by Maureen Caudill.
Her Bio:
Maureen Caudill was a University Scholar and received her bachelor’s degree in physics (with a mathematics minor) “with highest honors” (summa cum laude) from University of Connecticut, following that with a master’s degree from Cornell University. She spent more than twenty years as a computer scientist, with fifteen of those as a researcher in artificial intelligence and neural networks. She was a program manager and researcher for a major government contractor on advanced projects such as DARPA (“High Performance Knowledge Base” program) and ARDA (“Advanced Question Answering for Intelligence” program) that strove to develop computer systems that can demonstrate human expertise in complex question understanding and intricate knowledge of detailed real-world scenarios.
Her publication credits are extensive, including nonfiction books:
• Naturally Intelligent Systems, MIT Press;
• In Our Own Image, Oxford University Press;
• Understanding Neural Networks, a 2-volume college-level text with software from MIT Press
• Suddenly Psychic, Hampton Roads Publishing (forthcoming)
She has written a number of nonfiction articles, including two extended series of articles for AI Expert magazine:
• “Neural Network Primer” and
• “Using Neural Networks”
Both of these series were collected and reprinted several times as separate magazines by Miller-Freeman. She has published miscellaneous other articles in publications such as Computer Language and Byte, and several scientific papers.
Ms. Caudill also holds three patents on document and Internet search and retrieval technology:
• “Ontology-based parser for natural language processing” (US Patent # 7,027,974),
• “Method and system of ranking and clustering for document indexing and retrieval” (US Patent # 6,766,316), and
• “Concept-based search and retrieval system” (US Patent # 6,675,159)
She was a key organizer of and edited the conference proceedings for two separate international conferences on neural networks sponsored by the IEEE and the International Neural Network Society (INNS), each attended by more than 1700 attendees from all over the world. She has taught courses on neural networks at University of California, San Diego Extension program as well as offering commercial short courses on the technology. She has been a highly popular international lecturer, lecturing throughout the U.S, Mexico and Japan.
...AND THEN SHE BECAME PSYCHIC.
Maureen speaks at length in her book about her view of the consciousness of machines.