Category: Mind and AI

Final thoughts on The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul

This is the final post in a series I've been doing on Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka’s book: The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul, a book focused on the evolution of minimal consciousness.  This is a large book, and it covers a wide range of ideas.  A series of relatively small blog posts can't do them … Continue reading Final thoughts on The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul →

The seven attributes of minimal consciousness

I'm still working my way through Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka's tome: The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul.  This is the second post of a series on their book.  I'm actually on the last chapter, but that last chapter is close to a hundred pages long, and the book's prose is dense.  Light reading it … Continue reading The seven attributes of minimal consciousness →

The sensitive soul and the rational soul

I think examining the evolution of consciousness in animals helps shed light on it in humans.  Admittedly, there are difficulties.  Animals can't self report using language, which limits just how much of their experience can be garnered from experiments.  Still, taking data from human studies and combining it with animal studies can provide a lot … Continue reading The sensitive soul and the rational soul →

The response schema

Several months ago Michael Graziano, and colleagues, attempted a synthesis of three families of scientific theories of consciousness: global workspace theory (GWT), higher order theory (HOT), and his own attention schema theory (AST). A quick (crudely simplistic) reminder: GWT posits that content becomes conscious when it is globally broadcast throughout the brain, HOT when a … Continue reading The response schema →

Do qualia exist? Depends on what we mean by “exist.”

The cognitive scientist, Hakwan Lau, whose work I've highlighted several times in the last year, has been pondering illusionism recently.  He did a Twitter survey on the relationship between the phenomenal concept strategy (PCS) and illusionism, which inspired my post on the PCS.  (Meant to mention that in the post, but it slipped.)  Anyway, he's … Continue reading Do qualia exist? Depends on what we mean by “exist.” →

The phenomenal concept strategy and issues with conceptual isolation

I've often pondered that the hard problem of consciousness, the perceived problem of understanding how phenomenal consciousness can happen in physical systems, arises due to the fact that our intuitive model of the phenomenal is very different from our intuitive model of the physical, of the brain in particular. As is usually the case, anytime … Continue reading The phenomenal concept strategy and issues with conceptual isolation →

Recurrent processing theory and the function of consciousness

Victor Lamme's recurrent processing theory (RPT) remains on the short list of theories considered plausible by the consciousness science community.  It's something of a dark horse candidate, without the support of global workspace theory (GWT) or integrated information theory (IIT), but it gets more support among consciousness researchers than among general enthusiasts.  The Michael Cohen … Continue reading Recurrent processing theory and the function of consciousness →

Is there a conscious perception finish line?

Global workspace theory (GWT) is the proposition that consciousness is composed of contents broadcast throughout the brain.  Various specialty processes compete for the limited capacity of the broadcasting mechanisms, to have their content broadcast to the all the other specialty processes. Global neuronal workspace (GNW) is a variant of that theory, popularly promoted by Stanislas … Continue reading Is there a conscious perception finish line? →

For animal consciousness, is there a fact of the matter?

Peter Carruthers has been blogging this week on the thesis of his new book, Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Question Laid to Rest.  I mentioned Carruthers' book in my post on global workspace theory (GWT), but didn't get into the details.  While I had been considering taking a fresh look at GWT, his book … Continue reading For animal consciousness, is there a fact of the matter? →