this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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[–] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 13 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

I said it in another thread and I'll say it in this one.

Holy. Shit. The terror. The unknowable terror. Is digital-fly conscious? Have we any way of knowing?

[–] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 9 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

We've already been at this point, with these questions.

https://openworm.org/ you can run your own simulated worm buddy! With complete nervous system/connectome and muscle cells

[–] lowspeedchase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Warning: You can't download the whole virtual worm, we're not quite there yet! :)

You lied to me.

[–] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Yeah, I believe so far they have all of the neurons and muscle cells and have modelled the motor behavior, so the worm will wriggle and crawl around. I don't think they have yet simulated other biological processes. But the full "brain" is implemented and running.

There's also this which is a complete worm "brain" but even more simple motor behavior, that runs in your browser. https://heyseth.github.io/worm-sim/

[–] Whelks_chance@lemmy.world 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I feel like this will rapidly become a question of definitions. What is consciousness? Is a real fly conscious?

[–] flandish@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

questions that have been asked for thousands of years, actually. heck “cogito ergo sum” and all of that.