Category Archives: Mind and AI

A standard model of consciousness?

Posted on September 29, 2019 by

I’ve often noted that I find more consilience than disagreement between the empirically grounded theories of consciousness.  They seem to be looking at the problem at differing levels of organization, and together they may present a growing scientific consensus about … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , | 129 Comments

A correction: LeDoux’s actual views on instrumental learning in vertebrates

Posted on September 11, 2019 by

I have to make a correction.  In my post on LeDoux’s views on consciousness and emotions, I made the following statement: Anyway, LeDoux states that there is “no convincing” evidence for instrumental behavior in pre-mammalian vertebrates, or in invertebrates.  In … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , | 34 Comments

Layers of consciousness, September 2019 edition

Posted on September 8, 2019 by

A couple of years ago, when writing about panpsychism, I introduced a five layer conception of consciousness.  The idea back then was to show a couple of things. One was that very simple conceptions of consciousness, such as interactions with … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , | 73 Comments

Joseph LeDoux’s theories on consciousness and emotions

Posted on September 5, 2019 by

In the last post, I mentioned that I was reading Joseph LeDoux’s new book, The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains.  There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this book.  As its title … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 117 Comments

The difficulty of subjective experience

Posted on July 14, 2019 by

As I indicated in the Chalmers post last week, phenomenal consciousness has been on my mind lately.  In the last few days, a couple of my fellow bloggers, Wyrd Smythe and James Cross, have joined in with their own posts.  … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 111 Comments

Chalmers’ theory of consciousness

Posted on July 7, 2019 by

Ever since sharing Ned Block’s talk on it, phenomenal consciousness has been on my mind.  This week, I decided I needed to go back to the main spokesperson for the issue of subjective experience, David Chalmers, and his seminal paper … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , | 116 Comments

Dehaene’s global neuronal workspace theory

Posted on June 23, 2019 by

I just finished reading Stanislas Dehaene’s Consciousness and the Brain.  Dehaene is a French psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist who is bullish on the idea of consciousness being something that can be scientifically investigated.  It’s an interesting book, one that I … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , , | 37 Comments

Do boiling crawfish suffer?

Posted on April 23, 2019 by

This Easter I visited one of my cousins and, as is tradition for a lot of people this time of year, we had a crawfish boil.  Eating boiled crawfish (crayfish for you non-Cajuns) is an ever present activity in southern … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , | 17 Comments

The sensorium, the motorium, and the planner

Posted on March 4, 2019 by

I’ve been reading Gerhard Roth’s The Long Evolution of Brains and Minds. This a technical and, unfortunately, expensive book, not one aimed at general audiences, but it has a lot of interesting concepts.  A couple that Roth mentions are the … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , | 25 Comments

Did smell lead to consciousness?

Posted on February 17, 2019 by

Smell has apparently always been a peculiar sense.  The sensory pathway of smell information to the brain runs completely independent from the other senses.  The pathways for the other senses run through the midbrain and thalamus and are then relayed … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 54 Comments