Categoría: Emergentism
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Some problems of the very intuitive evolutionary emergentist paradigm trying to explain consciousness from neurons
Some problems of the very intuitive evolutionary emergentist paradigm trying to explain consciousness from neurons, thanks to Andrés Gómez Emilsson and Chris Percy at Qualia Research Institute: The “Slicing Problem” is a thought experiment that raises questions for substrate-neutral computational theories of consciousness, particularly, in functionalist approaches. The thought experiment uses water-based logic gates to…
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Only mammals and birds are sentient, according to Nick Humphrey
Only mammals and birds are sentient, according to neuroscientist Nick Humphrey’s theory of consciousness, recently explained in “Sentience: The invention of consciousness”. In 2023, Nick Humphrey published his book Sentience: The invention of consciousness (S:TIOC). In this book he proposed a theory of consciousness that implies, he says, that only mammals and birds have any…
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Consciousness baffles me, but not the Hard Problem
Simply put, the Hard Problem asks the following question: how can the machinery of the brain (the neurons and synapses) produce consciousness — the colours that we see, for example, or the sounds that we hear? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-07/david-chalmers-and-the-puzzle-of-consciousness/8679884 «Consciousness baffles me, but not the Hard Problem. The Hard Problem arises only if one makes a metaphysical…
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Integrating information in the brain’s EM field: the cemi field theory of consciousness
A key aspect of consciousness is that it represents bound or integrated information, prompting an increasing conviction that the physical substrate of consciousness must be capable of encoding integrated information in the brain. However, as Ralph Landauer insisted, ‘information is physical’ so integrated information must be physically integrated. I argue here that nearly all examples…
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Can GPT3 or a later version of it experience suffering?
And if so, should we be continuing to develop it? I have to admit that I don’t know much about how the system works, but I’m genuinely curious: how do we know that it doesn’t feel anything? I’m just concerned because I’m seeing more and more articles about its creation and the many amazing things…
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The hypothesis of the universe self-simulating itself in a strange loop
A paper from the Quantum Gravity Research institute proposes there is an underlying panconsciousness. The physical universe is a «strange loop» says the new paper titled «The Self-Simulation Hypothesis Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics» from the team at the Quantum Gravity Research, a Los Angeles-based theoretical physics institute founded by the scientist and entrepreneur Klee Irwin. They take Bostrom’s simulation…
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Stephen Wolfram has a radical plan to build the universe from dots and lines
The Wolfram Physics Project,is an ambitious attempt to develop a new physics of our universe. Read more
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If we are sentient robots, without will, sentience is not useful. And if it’s useful, how can it be?
When it is stated that sentience has a purpose, this idea is usually explained by indicating that sentience is useful because it motivates doing certain things and avoiding others. In addition, in this explanation, it is usually indicated that sentience motivates but does not force. That is, under this explanation, sentience is not simply the…
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The importance of phenomenal binding, by David Pearce
We normally assume a fundamental distinction between conscious and non-conscious systems. Instead, I explore the possibility that what makes animals special isn’t consciousness per se, but phenomenal binding. Unless spooky “strong” emergence is true, then a termite colony, or the enteric nervous system, or a classical digital computer, or the population of the United States…
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How a nervous system operates without giving rise to an experience
In our bodies, if our knee is lightly tapped, our leg moves automatically (with no intention on our part) and independently of the experience of the tap that we sense. The information that originates in our knee, with the tap, splits up and moves through two separate pathways: one path goes to our brain through…