[Consciousness] - A New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum

A New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum

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Consciousness

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Posted by: vijaybhatter

Hi Friends,
I've posted here about my views of physics and related topics.

The idea I'm currently looking for feedback to relates to consciousness and how it may be found in simple programs like a model of nature.
Thanks,
Tom


Posted by: MikeHelland

Where are the details of your idea?

Personally, I think that consciousness is just a name for our ability to observe.

In that case, accounting for consciousness in physics models would be as simple as modeling an observer.

That's actually a bit more profound than you would think it is.

All of physics right now tries to describe a world according to an observer.

My suggestion is a whole new approach, it tries to describe a world that includes an observer.

In other words, instead of the theory explaining what is in the mind of the observer, the theory has to explain the mind of the observer.


Posted by: Jesse Nochella

Tom, I don't think you have posted here about your views. I'd be interested to know what they are. I have a preliminary model for what I think is all that is needed to model consciousness/observations, what is called live automata. My first approach is CA based to make things easy and presentable. All that I've posted about the model so far is in my post about a CA model for our universe.

To me it all seems quite pure. I don't know what else to say about it. It seems simple enough and complex enough to easily be implemented by nature, and I think that regardless how it all actually happens, that as a conceptual model it is a great advance from anything else that I've ever seen.

I'll post shortly a new thread with my preliminary notebook and a breakdown of what I think we can do with it. It's refreshing to see people independently working on this stuff as I am. I find that discussion of these subjects never really get old, and always benefit.

Jesse Nochella


Posted by: AndrewW

Just an idea, but perhaps conciousness is just what it feels like to exist. This implies that everything that exists is concious. What we possess as individual human beings is not just conciousness, but SELF-conciousness, which is what it feels like to be a neo-cortex etc.


Posted by: Jon Arts

There are two books that provide models of consciousness.

The first is "Consciousness Explained" by Daniel Dennett. You have to dig a little to get to his definition, but if you combine his statements on pages 254 and 281 you get pretty close. To simplify: Anyone or anything that has a virtual serial machine in a complex parallel environment has consciousness.

A fuller model of human consciousness is found in the book " A cognitive theory of consciousness" by Bernard J. Baars. Possibly his model can be simplified to get to an elementary artificial consciousness. Baars' model resembles Dennett's. Baars is working with others on artificial models of consciousness. He has published at least one more book that I haven't read yet. I am sure that you'll find more if you do a search on Baars.

Jon


Posted by: Phil Caldow

Gday,

I found this page once, seems to provide a good description of consciousness. AI researchers are forced to clarify their ideas regarding consciousness to a scientific level so id say thats where some solid ideas are going to come from.

http://evol.etro.vub.ac.be/level_2/...n-3/poster.html

Its to do with the outcome of observers with localised views of the environment interactin with each other etc. Doesnt seem to have much to do with simple machines, but possibly could see it as the effect of having dynamic rules (ie, observe new rule about environment, incorporate into set of already existing rules, resolve conflict, cascading changes). I hope that is coherent. :)
Check it.


Posted by: BenTremblay

Originally posted by Jon Arts
There are two books that provide models of consciousness.

The first is "Consciousness Explained" by Daniel Dennett. [...]

A fuller model of human consciousness is found in the book " A cognitive theory of consciousness" by Bernard J. Baars. [...]
Jon


:-) Birds of a feather, we are! Though I'd put Dennett at the bottom of my list.

I strongly suggest Chalmers' "Hard Problem" His homepage has a lot of very good material:
http://consc.net/chalmers/


Posted by: Val Smith

Puzzling Consciousness Quiz:

Are you conscious if you are sleeping?
Are you conscious if you are dreaming?
Are you conscious if you are lucid-dreaming?
Are you conscious if you are hallucinating?
Are you concious if you are awake but
meditating or day-dreaming?
Are you conscious if you are in a coma?
Are you conscious if you are dead?

Is consciousness a rule-based holographic neuroelectromagnetic-field?
OR
Is consciousness what remote-controls a planet-roving vehicle using the brain as a remote control transceiver?

Does consciousness see the same discontinuity in it's own sleep as it's fellow conscious beings do?

In the transceiver model,
dreams are diversions from earth-roving,
and hallucinations are signal corruptions,
and externally observed unconciousness is rover-off-time.

In the transceiver model there is no knowledge of the actual location of the self-consciousness,
since it occasionally perceives itself to be in a dream, which only it can be conscious of, and which has no known location.

A person may perceive themselves to be in a different place
if they are operating a simulated or actual remote controlled televising machine....

Having that point of view they feel there as much as I now feel here.
So ...
Where Are We?


Posted by: Gershom Zajicek M.D.

When talking about consciousness please distinguish between consciousness – the state, and being conscious off something.

Please distinguish also between consciousness experienced in first-person perspective and in third-person perspective. The first is what you experience, while the other is a description of what somebody thinks about this experience. The latter is regarded as the science of consciousness (Theory of the mind). The correlation between the two is marginal.

Nevertheless you have a tool with which you may experience the consciousness of the other. It is called empathy. It exists and operates in your subconscious.

http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...ndfreewill.html




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