Tag: Mind

Layers of self awareness and animal cognition

In the last consciousness post, which discussed issues with panpsychism and simple definitions of consciousness, I laid out five functional layers of cognition which I find helpful when trying to think about systems that are more or less conscious.  Just to recap, those layers are: Reflexes, primal reactions to stimuli. Perception, sensory models of the … Continue reading Layers of self awareness and animal cognition →

Panpsychism and layers of consciousness

I've written before about panpyschism, the outlook that everything is conscious and that consciousness permeates the universe.  However, that previous post was within the context of replying to a TEDx talk, and I'm not entirely satisfied with the remarks I made back then, so this is a revisit of that topic. I've noted many times … Continue reading Panpsychism and layers of consciousness →

Why embodiment does not make mind copying impossible

A while back, I highlighted a TEDX talk by Anil Seth where he discussed that cognition is largely a prediction machine.  Apparently Seth more recently gave another talk at the full TED conference, which is receiving rave reviews.  Unfortunately, that talk doesn't appear to be online yet. But one article reviewing the talk focuses on something … Continue reading Why embodiment does not make mind copying impossible →

Steven Pinker: From neurons to consciousness

This lecture from Steven Pinker has been around for a while, but it seems to get at a question a few people have asked me recently: how does the information processing of neurons and synapses lead to conscious perception?  Pinker doesn't answer this question comprehensively (that would require a vast series of lectures), but he answers facets of … Continue reading Steven Pinker: From neurons to consciousness →

Is consciousness only in the back of the brain?

Diagram showing the regions of the brain

There's an interesting debate going on among some neuroscientists about which parts of the brain are involved in subjective experience.  On the one side are Christof Koch, Giuilio Tononi, and colleagues who argue that consciousness exists wholly in the back of the brain, that the frontal structures are not involved.  On the other side are neuroscientists … Continue reading Is consciousness only in the back of the brain? →

Why fears of an AI apocalypse are misguided

In this Big Think video, Steven Pinker makes a point I've made before, that fear of artificial intelligence comes with a deep misunderstanding about the relationship between intelligence and motivation.  Human minds come with survival instincts, programmatic goals hammered out by hundreds of millions of years of evolution.  Artificial intelligence isn't going to have those … Continue reading Why fears of an AI apocalypse are misguided →

What about subjective experience implies anything non-physical?

Mary's room is a classic philosophical thought experiment about consciousness.  The Wikipedia article on what's called the knowledge argument quotes Frank Jackson, the originator of the argument, as follows: Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white … Continue reading What about subjective experience implies anything non-physical? →

What do scientific theories actually tell us about the world?

One of the things that's exciting about learning new things, is that often a new understanding in one area sheds light on what might seem like a completely separate topic.  For me, information about how the brain works appears to have shed new light on a question in the philosophy of of science, where there has long … Continue reading What do scientific theories actually tell us about the world? →