Category Archives: Mind and AI

The magic step and the crucial fork

Posted on December 8, 2019 by

Those of you who’ve known me for a while may remember the long fascination I’ve had with Michael Graziano’s attention schema theory of consciousness.  I covered it early in this blog’s history and have returned to it multiple times over … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 45 Comments

The layers of emotional feelings

Posted on November 25, 2019 by

One of the ongoing debates in neuroscience is on the nature of emotions, where they originate, where they are felt, and how innate versus learned they are. One view, championed by the late Jaak Panksepp and his followers, see emotions … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , | 46 Comments

The barrier of meaning

Posted on November 20, 2019 by

In the post on the Chinese room, while concluding that Searle’s overall thesis isn’t demonstrated, I noted that if he had restricted himself to a more limited assertion, he might have had a point, that the Turing test doesn’t guarantee … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , | 51 Comments

The problems with the Chinese room argument

Posted on November 10, 2019 by

In 1950, Alan Turing published a seminal paper on machine intelligence (which is available online).  Turing ponders whether machines can think.  However, he pretty much immediately abandons this initial question as hopelessly metaphysical and replaces it with another question that … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 80 Comments

Integrated information theory

Posted on October 29, 2019 by

I think most of you know I’m not a fan of integrated information theory (IIT).  However, it is a theory proposed by scientists, and I’ve always had a mildly guilty conscience over not having read about it other than through articles … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , | 101 Comments

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 →

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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 , , , , , , , , | 118 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