Related papers: On the Evolution of Subjective Experience
The "easy" problem of cognitive science is explaining how and why we can do what we can do. The "hard" problem is explaining how and why we feel. Turing's methodology for cognitive science (the Turing Test) is based on doing: Design a model…
It is a commonplace perception that speed of time subjectively experienced by humans significantly differs from chronological (objective) time and shows a great deal of variability. An often cited example is the phenomenon of the time…
The problem of explaining the relationship between subjective experience and physical reality remains difficult and unresolved. In most explanations, consciousness is epiphenomenal, without causal power. The most notable exception is…
Understanding why we age is a long-lived open problem in evolutionary biology. Aging is prejudicial to the individual and evolutionary forces should prevent it, but many species show signs of senescence as individuals age. Here, I will…
Because we are highly motivated to be understood, we created public external representations -- mime, language, art -- to externalise our inner states. We argue that such external representations are a pre-condition for access…
The evolution of complexity has been a central theme for Biology [2] and Artificial Life research [1]. It is generally agreed that complexity has increased in our universe, giving way to life, multi-cellularity, societies, and systems of…
The purpose of this article is to provide an overall critical appraisal of Integrated Information Theory(IIT) of consciousness. We explore how it has evolved and what problems are involved in the theory. IIT is a hypothesis that…
We frame the question of what kind of subjective experience a brain simulation would have in contrast to a biological brain. We discuss the brain prosthesis thought experiment. We evaluate how the experience of the brain simulation might…
The Mind-Body Problem, which constitutes the starting point for a large part of the speculations about consciousness and conscious experience, can be re-stated in an equivalent way, using the `brain duplication' argument described in this…
We discuss preliminary results from two experiments and put forth the notion that the development of sensory systems might be more geared towards discerning differences rather than for spotting similarities. We present the possibility that…
It has been suggested, on the one hand, that quantum states are just states of knowledge; and, on the other, that quantum theory is merely a theory of correlations. These suggestions are confronted with problems about the nature of…
Because human cognition is creative and socially situated, knowledge accumulates, diffuses, and gets applied in new contexts, generating cultural analogs of phenomena observed in population genetics such as adaptation and drift. It is…
The question of the nature of space around us has occupied thinkers since the dawn of humanity, with scientists and philosophers today implicitly assuming that space is something that exists objectively. Here we show that this does not have…
What is Virtual Reality? A professional tool, made to facilitate our everyday tasks? A conceptual mistake, accompanied by cybersickness and unsolved locomotion issues since the very beginning? Or just another source of entertainment that…
We surveyed 582 AI researchers who have published in leading AI venues and 838 nationally representative US participants about their views on the potential development of AI systems with subjective experience and how such systems should be…
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…
It is claimed elsewhere that the conscious states of humans must have evolved together with their biological states, and that an ongoing interaction between the two must have occurred to insure that they mirror one another in any species. A…
The evolution of symbolic communication is a longstanding open research question in biology. While some theories suggest that it originated from sub-symbolic communication (i.e., iconic or indexical), little experimental evidence exists on…
Understanding of the phenomena of vision and thought require clarification of the general mechanism of perception. So far, philosophical inquiries and scientific investigations have not been able to address clearly the mysteries surrounding…
From its early foundations in the 1970s, empirical software engineering (ESE) has evolved into a mature research discipline that embraces a plethora of different topics, methodologies, and industrial practices. Despite its remarkable…