Category: Zeitgeist

A response to the unfolding argument: a defense of Integrated Information Theory

Back in May,  I shared a paper that made a blistering attack on the integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness.  A major point of IIT is that a specific causal structure is necessary to generate phenomenal experience, namely a feedback or recurrent neural network, that is, a neural network with structural loops.  To be clear, … Continue reading A response to the unfolding argument: a defense of Integrated Information Theory →

The role of beauty and simplicity in scientific theories

In the post on Copernicus earlier this week, I noted that his heliocentric theory, right from its initial publication, was hailed as far more mathematically elegant than the Aristotelian / Ptolemaic system, which was taken as the canonical model of the universe at the time.  But while everyone hailed Copernican mathematics, virtually no one accepted … Continue reading The role of beauty and simplicity in scientific theories →

Massimo on consciousness: no illusion, but also no spookiness

Massimo Pigliucci has a good article on consciousness at Aeon.  In it, he takes aim both at illusionists as well as those who claim consciousness is outside the purview of science.  Although I'd say he's more worked up about the illusionists. However, rather than taking the typical path of strawmanning the claim, he deals with … Continue reading Massimo on consciousness: no illusion, but also no spookiness →

Is entanglement decoherence from the outside, and decoherence entanglement from the inside?

A recent tweet by Sean Carroll has me thinking. https://twitter.com/seanmcarroll/status/1204128666273271808 Quantum decoherence is said to occur when a particular quantum system becomes entangled with its environment, that is to say, as information about the quantum system spreads throughout the environment, that system undergoes at least an apparent wave function collapse.  It stops behaving like a … Continue reading Is entanglement decoherence from the outside, and decoherence entanglement from the inside? →

The information generation theory of consciousness

James of Seattle called my attention to an interesting paper in the Neuroscience of Consciousness journal: Information generation as a functional basis of consciousness: Drawing upon empirical research into consciousness, we propose a hypothesis that a function of consciousness is to internally generate counterfactual representations detached from the current sensory events. Interactions with generated representations … Continue reading The information generation theory of consciousness →

Conscious visual perception happens in the frontal lobes

(warning: neuroscience weeds) Okay, switching back to the other major debate in neuroscience: whether conscious perception happens in the back or front of the brain.  A new study presents evidence that seems to bolster the frontal view: Neural Correlates of the Conscious Perception of Visual Location Lie Outside Visual Cortex (warning: paywall): When perception differs … Continue reading Conscious visual perception happens in the frontal lobes →

Add feelings to AI to achieve general intelligence?

Neuroscientists Kingston Man and Antonio Damasio have a paper out arguing that the way to get artificial intelligence (AI) to the next level is to add in feelings. “Today’s robots lack feelings,” Man and Damasio write in a new paper (subscription required) in Nature Machine Intelligence. “They are not designed to represent the internal state of their operations … Continue reading Add feelings to AI to achieve general intelligence? →