Related papers: On the evolution of phenomenal consciousness
We here analyse the question of developing artificial consciousness from an evolutionary perspective, taking the evolution of the human brain and its relation with consciousness as a reference model. This kind of analysis reveals several…
A model of an organism as an autonomous intelligent system has been proposed. This model was used to analyze learning of an organism in various environmental conditions. Processes of learning were divided into two types: strong and weak…
I propose that quality of life can be compared despite the difference in values across cultures when it is experienced at the sensory and perceptual level. I argue that an approach to assessing quality of life which focuses on an…
Phenomenology is the rigorous descriptive study of conscious experience. Recent attempts to formalize Husserlian phenomenology provide us with a mathematical model of perception as a function of prior knowledge and expectation. In this…
Evaluating artificial systems for signs of consciousness is increasingly becoming a pressing concern, and a rigorous psychometric measurement framework may be of crucial importance in evaluating large language models in this regard. Most…
The most enigmatic aspect of consciousness is the fact that it is felt, as a subjective sensation. The theory proposed here aims to explain this particular aspect. The theory encompasses both the computation that is presumably involved and…
Fundamental approaches bypass the problem of getting consciousness from non-conscious components by positing that consciousness is a universal primitive. For example, the double aspect theory of information holds that information has a…
Conscious experience permeates our daily lives, yet general consensus on a theory of consciousness remains elusive. In the face of such difficulty, an alternative strategy is to address a more general (meta-level) version of the problem for…
This paper is a shortened version of the full paper that was published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology in May 2022. In recent decades, the scientific study of consciousness has significantly increased our understanding of this…
Scientific studies of consciousness rely on objects whose existence is assumed to be independent of any consciousness. On the contrary, we assume consciousness to be fundamental, and that one of the main features of consciousness is…
Understanding the neural mechanism underlying subjective representation has become a central endeavor in cognitive-neuroscience. In theories of conscious perception, stimulus gaining conscious access is usually considered as a discrete…
A stream of conscious experience is extremely contextual; it is impacted by sensory stimuli, drives and emotions, and the web of associations that link, directly or indirectly, the subject of experience to other elements of the individual's…
It has been proposed that, since the origin of life and the ensuing evolution of biological species, a second evolutionary process has appeared on our planet. It is the evolution of culture-e.g., ideas, beliefs, and artifacts. Does culture…
Awareness and self-awareness are two different notions related to knowing the environment and itself. In a general context, the mechanism of self-awareness belongs to a class of co-called "self-issues" (self-* or self-star):…
We reexamine the generalized cognitive homunculus, an organism's internalized image of its physiological, psychological, and social state, which, when properly adjusted, can quickly detect subtle deviations from a reference configuration.…
The observation of the nature and world represents the main source of human knowledge on the basis of our reason. At the present it is also the use of precise measurement approaches, which may contribute significantly to the knowledge of…
We will argue that a phenomenological analysis of consciousness, similar to that of Husserl, shows that the effects of phenomenal qualities shape our perception of the world. It also shows the way the physical and mathematical sciences…
In recent years, promising mathematical models have been suggested which aim to describe conscious experience and its relation to the physical domain. Whereas the axioms and metaphysical ideas of these theories have been carefully…
Interactions with large language models have led to the suggestion that these models may soon be conscious. From the perspective of neuroscience, this position is difficult to defend. For one, the inputs to large language models lack the…
This article questions the widespread assumption that there are brain representations that will always remain unconscious in the sense of being inaccessible to individual awareness under any circumstances. This implies that some part of the…