Physical requirements for models of consciousness

Consciousness presents a series of characteristics that have been observed through- out the years: unity, continuity, richness and robustness are some of them. It manifests itself in regions of the brain capable of processing a huge quantity of integrated information with a level of neural activity close to criticality. We argue that the physics of consciousness cannot be exclusively based on classical physics. Consciousness unity cannot be explained classically as the classical properties are always Humean like a mosaic. One needs an entangled quantum system that can at least satisfy part of the functions of a quantum computer to allow to generate an inner aspect with the unity of consciousness and to couple with a classical system that gives it simultaneous access to preprocessed information at the neural level and to produce events that generate neural firings

Physical requirements for models of consciousness

Consciousness presents a series of characteristics that have been observed through- out the years: unity, continuity, richness and robustness are some of them. It manifests itself in regions of the brain capable of processing a huge quantity of integrated information with a level of neural activity close to criticality. We argue that the physics of consciousness cannot be exclusively based on classical physics. Consciousness unity cannot be explained classically as the classical properties are always Humean like a mosaic. One needs an entangled quantum system that can at least satisfy part of the functions of a quantum computer to allow to generate an inner aspect with the unity of consciousness and to couple with a classical system that gives it simultaneous access to preprocessed information at the neural level and to produce events that generate neural firings

Knots and Consciousness: Knotted Models Applied to Uriah Kriegel's "Consciousness, Permanent Self-Awareness, and Higher-Order Monitoring"

International audienceThis paper is a response to Uriah Kriegel's "Consciousness, Permanent Self-Awareness, and Higher-Order Monitoring" (Kriegel 2002) interpreted with my knot models of consciousness. In his paper, Kriegel argues that permanent self-awareness accompanies every conscious state, which I present in a trefoil knot model that provides some features of consciousness which were not captured in the pre-existing models of consciousness. By doing so, I will also show that the core of the consciousness discussion is related to the structure and the relationship between the observing and the observed self

BUT IS IT ENERGY? REFLECTIONS ON CONSCIOUSNESS, HEALING, AND THE NEW PARADIGM

When consciousness is involved in healing, it manifests either locally or nonlocally. Although local manifestations of consciousness can be described by the known tenets of physiology and contemporary physics, nonlocal effects of consciousness cannot be so described. Any comprehensive model of mind-based healing must account for "limit cases" such as nonlocal, distant healing effects which are apparently immediate, un mediated, and unmitigated; and effects which display time-displacement. It is questionable whether energy-based models of consciousness and healing are capable of such explanations. It is proposed that nonlocal models of consciousness must transcend a reliance on an energy metaphor. Such emerging models contain profound practical and spiritual implications

BUT IS IT ENERGY? REFLECTIONS ON CONSCIOUSNESS, HEALING, AND THE NEW PARADIGM

When consciousness is involved in healing, it manifests either locally or nonlocally. Although local manifestations of consciousness can be described by the known tenets of physiology and contemporary physics, nonlocal effects of consciousness cannot be so described. Any comprehensive model of mind-based healing must account for "limit cases" such as nonlocal, distant healing effects which are apparently immediate, un mediated, and unmitigated; and effects which display time-displacement. It is questionable whether energy-based models of consciousness and healing are capable of such explanations. It is proposed that nonlocal models of consciousness must transcend a reliance on an energy metaphor. Such emerging models contain profound practical and spiritual implications

Computational Models of Consciousness-Emotion Interactions in Social Robotics: Conceptual Framework

There is a little information on how to design a social robot that effectively executes consciousness-emotion (C-E) interaction in a socially acceptable manner. In fact, development of such socially sophisticated interactions depends on models of human high-level cognition implemented in the robot’s design. Therefore, a fundamental research problem of social robotics in terms of effective C-E interaction processing is to define a computational architecture of the robotic system in which the cognitive-emotional integration occurs and determine cognitive mechanisms underlying consciousness along with its subjective aspect in detecting emotions. Our conceptual framework rests upon assumptions of a computational approach to consciousness, which points out that consciousness and its subjective aspect are specific functions of the human brain that can be implemented into an artificial social robot’s construction. Such research framework of developing C-E addresses a field of machine consciousness that indicates important computational correlates of consciousness in such an artificial system and the possibility to objectively describe such mechanisms with quantitative parameters based on signal-detection and threshold theories

Physical requirements for models of consciousness

Consciousness presents a series of characteristics that have been observed through- out the years: unity, continuity, richness and robustness are some of them. It manifests itself in regions of the brain capable of processing a huge quantity of integrated information with a level of neural activity close to criticality. We argue that the physics of consciousness cannot be exclusively based on classical physics. Consciousness unity cannot be explained classically as the classical properties are always Humean like a mosaic. One needs an entangled quantum system that can at least satisfy part of the functions of a quantum computer to allow to generate an inner aspect with the unity of consciousness and to couple with a classical system that gives it simultaneous access to preprocessed information at the neural level and to produce events that generate neural firings

Scientific requirements for an engineered model of consciousness

The building of a non-natural conscious system requires more than the design of physical or virtual machines with intuitively conceived abilities, philosophically elucidated architecture or hardware homologous to an animal’s brain. Human society might one day treat a type of robot or computing system as an artificial person. Yet that would not answer scientific questions about the machine’s consciousness or otherwise. Indeed, empirical tests for consciousness are impossible because no such entity is denoted within the theoretical structure of the science of mind, i.e. psychology. However, contemporary experimental psychology can identify if a specific mental process is conscious in particular circumstances, by theory-based interpretation of the overt performance of human beings. Thus, if we are to build a conscious machine, the artificial systems must be used as a test-bed for theory developed from the existing science that distinguishes conscious from non-conscious causation in natural systems. Only such a rich and realistic account of hypothetical processes accounting for observed input/output relationships can establish whether or not an engineered system is a model of consciousness. It follows that any research project on machine consciousness needs a programme of psychological experiments on the demonstration systems and that the programme should be designed to deliver a fully detailed scientific theory of the type of artificial mind being developed – a Psychology of that Machine