The March 6 episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast interviewed Jennifer Oullette to talk about her latest book, 'Me, Myself, and Why: Searching for the Science of Self '. During the interview, Chris Mooney asked her if the self is an illusion. I was impressed that Oullette downplayed the phrase. The self is not what … Continue reading The phrase “is an illusion” is overused
Tag: Consciousness
Sleep and death
HuffPost has an interesting Sleep 101 article up. Sleep is anything but a waste of time. While many people think of catching ZZs as the body "shutting off" until morning, nodding off actually activates a complicated process that helps you feel rested and healthy the next day. Scientists divide sleep into four stages -- each … Continue reading Sleep and death
Is the United States conscious?
I saw this interesting post by Eric Schwitzgebel on whether or not regarding the US as a conscious entity is compatible with materialism. In the post, he examines an objection by David Chalmers, which is interesting, but not something that particularly resonates with me, seeming like a just so rational to a pre-intuited conclusion. Eric also … Continue reading Is the United States conscious?
Is Consciousness Universal?: Scientific American
These century-old arguments bring me to the conceptual framework of the integrated information theory (IIT) of psychiatrist and neuroscientist Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. It postulates that conscious experience is a fundamental aspect of reality and is identical to a particular type of information—integrated information. Consciousness depends on a physical substrate but is … Continue reading Is Consciousness Universal?: Scientific American
Consciousness and the Social Brain: A review
What is consciousness? What is the inner experience that we all feel we have? Is it an illusion or an ontological reality? Michael Graziano thinks it is a reality, and he thinks he has found a scientific theory for it, which he describes in his book: 'Consciousness and the Social Brain'. The quest for a … Continue reading Consciousness and the Social Brain: A review
Attention happens
I'm currently reading Michael Graziano's book 'Consciousness and the Social Brain', which I hope to give a review of sometime soon. In the book, he makes a distinction between attention and awareness. Attention is something that happens when one of the competing collections of signals in the brain wins, and awareness is data in the … Continue reading Attention happens
Michael Graziano: The Spirit Constructed in the Brain
I perceive consciousness in myself. My brain constructs a perceptual model of a mind that thinks this and that, feels this and that and is aware of this and that; the mind is attributed to my own location. That model provides an organized, coherent way for me to understand myself -- to predict and help … Continue reading Michael Graziano: The Spirit Constructed in the Brain
Reinstalling Eden : Nature : Nature Publishing Group
Eve, I call her. She awakes, wondering where she is and how she got there. She admires the beauty of the island. She cracks a coconut, drinks its juice and tastes its flesh. Her cognitive skills, her range of emotions, the richness of her sensory experiences, all rival my own. She thinks about where she … Continue reading Reinstalling Eden : Nature : Nature Publishing Group
BBC – Future – Technology – Is it OK to torture or murder a robot?
In the discussion on my post on computer consciousness from the other day, my friend amanimal just provided the following link: BBC - Future - Technology - Is it OK to torture or murder a robot?. I think this powerfully corroborates my thesis in that post, but it also illustrates that I might have been … Continue reading BBC – Future – Technology – Is it OK to torture or murder a robot?
More on computer consciousness
After discussion on my post the other day on consciousness being in the eye beholder, I realized that I probably should expand a bit on my hypothesis about what we would intuitively consider to be a conscious being. We, as minds, are aware. We have awareness from our senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. From the … Continue reading More on computer consciousness
SelfAwarePatterns 