Related papers: The "Hard Problem" of Life
Neural theories of consciousness face three difficulties: (1) The selection problem: how are those neurons which cause consciousness selected, from all the other neurons which do not? (2) the precision problem: how do neurons hold a…
The "measurement problem" of quantum mechanics, and the "hard problem" of cognitive science are the most profound open problems of the two research fields, and certainly among the deepest of all unsettled conundrums in contemporary science…
We present a theory of information expressed solely in terms of which transformations of physical systems are possible and which are impossible - i.e. in constructor-theoretic terms. Although it includes conjectured laws of physics that are…
These lectures deal with the problem of inductive inference, that is, the problem of reasoning under conditions of incomplete information. Is there a general method for handling uncertainty? Or, at least, are there rules that could in…
In our previous articles ("The Information and the Matter", v1, v5; more systematically the informational conception is presented in arXiv paper "The Information as Absolute", 2010) it was rigorously shown that the Matter is some…
This work outlines the novel application of the empirical analysis of causation, presented by Kutach, to the study of information theory and its role in physics. The central thesis of this paper is that causation and information are…
The oft-repeated claim that life is written into the laws of nature are examined and criticized. Arguments are given in favour of life spreading between near-neighbour planets in rocky impact ejecta (transpermia), but against panspermia,…
We review possible measures of complexity which might in particular be applicable to situations where the complexity seems to arise spontaneously. We point out that not all of them correspond to the intuitive (or "naive") notion, and that…
The study of system complexity primarily has two objectives: to explore underlying patterns and to develop theoretical explanations. Pattern exploration seeks to clarify the mechanisms behind the emergence of system complexity, while…
The science of complexity is based on a new way of thinking that stands in sharp contrast to the philosophy underlying Newtonian science, which is based on reductionism, determinism, and objective knowledge. This paper reviews the…
We examine the hypothesis that consciousness can be understood as a state of matter, "perceptronium", with distinctive information processing abilities. We explore five basic principles that may distinguish conscious matter from other…
This paper explores the idea that information is an essential and distinctive feature of living systems. Unlike non-living systems, living systems actively acquire, process, and use information about their environments to respond to…
In inverse problems, one attempts to infer spatially variable functions from indirect measurements of a system. To practitioners of inverse problems, the concept of "information" is familiar when discussing key questions such as which parts…
The human mind is constituted by inner, subjective, private, first-person conscious experiences that cannot be measured with physical devices or observed from an external, objective, public, third-person perspective. The qualitative,…
Consciousness is the process by which one attributes `meaning' to the world. Considering F$\phi$llesdal's definition of `meaning' as the joint product of all `evidence' that is available to those who `communicate', we conclude that science…
A principal can restrict an agent's information (the persuasion problem) or restrict an agent's discretion (the delegation problem). We show that these problems are generally equivalent - solving one solves the other. We use tools from the…
We show that it is possible to understand and identify a decision maker's subjective causal judgements by observing her preferences over interventions. Following Pearl [2000], we represent causality using causal models (also called…
Confusion and disagreement around the notion of time is due to the fact that we often fail to recognize that we call 'time' a variety of distinct notions, only partially related to one another. Many apparently obvious properties of time are…
In most real-world settings, due to limited time or other resources, an agent cannot perform all potentially useful deliberation and information gathering actions. This leads to the metareasoning problem of selecting such actions.…
The quest for a scientific description of consciousness has given rise to new theoretical and empirical paradigms for the investigation of phenomenological contents as well as clinical disorders of consciousness. An outstanding challenge in…