Related papers: On the Evolution of Subjective Experience
This paper examines the processes involved in attempting to capture the subtlest aspects of nature by the scientific method and argues on this basis that nature is fundamentally elusive and may resist grasping by the methods of science. If…
Providing assurances for self-adaptive systems is challenging. A primary underlying problem is uncertainty that may stem from a variety of different sources, ranging from incomplete knowledge to sensor noise and uncertain behavior of humans…
Quantum theory has been proved as an outstanding mystery in modern science. The predictions of science have turned out to be probabilistic. The principle of determinism has failed. For systems like weather, earthquakes, rolling dices etc...…
Measuring emotions is a real challenge for fundamental and applied research, especially in ecological contexts. de Wijk and Noldus propose combining two types of measures-explicit to characterize a specific food, and…
Propelled by the omnipresence of versatile data capture, communication, and computing technologies, physical sensing has revolutionized the avenue for decisively interpreting the real world. However, various limitations hinder physical…
Adaptive behavior is mainly the result of adaptive brains. We go a step beyond and claim that the brain does not only adapt to its surrounding reality but rather, it builds itself up to constructs its own reality. That is, rather than just…
The physics of matter in the condensed state is concerned with problems in which the number of constituent particles is vastly greater than can be easily comprehended. The inherent physical limitations of the human mind are fundamental and…
Improvisation-the art of spontaneous creation that unfolds moment-to-moment without a scripted outcome-requires practitioners to continuously sense, adapt, and create anew. It is a fundamental mode of human creativity spanning music, dance,…
Emotions are intimately tied to motivation and the adaptation of behavior, and many animal species show evidence of emotions in their behavior. Therefore, emotions must be related to powerful mechanisms that aid survival, and, emotions must…
Our experience of the world is multisensory, spanning a synthesis of language, sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Yet, artificial intelligence has primarily advanced in digital modalities like text, vision, and audio. This paper…
It has been proposed that there is a wave excitation in animal brains, whose function is to represent three-dimensional space around the animal as a working spatial memory. After surveying the evidence supporting the hypothesis, I discuss…
The idea that the brain is a probabilistic (Bayesian) inference machine, continuously trying to figure out the hidden causes of its inputs, has become very influential in cognitive (neuro)science over recent decades. Here I present a…
Emotion is often described as something people 'feel' in their bodies. Embodied emotion theorists propose that this connection is not purely linguistic; perceiving an emotion may require somatosensory and motor re-experiencing. However, it…
Living systems exhibit a range of fundamental characteristics: they are active, self-referential, self-modifying systems. This paper explores how these characteristics create challenges for conventional scientific approaches and why they…
"Monkey see monkey do" is an age-old adage, referring to na\"ive imitation without a deep understanding of a system's underlying mechanics. Indeed, if a demonstrator has access to information unavailable to the imitator (monkey), such as a…
The notion of hypothetical bias (HB) constitutes, arguably, the most fundamental issue in relation to the use of hypothetical survey methods. Whether or to what extent choices of survey participants and subsequent inferred estimates…
This is a comment on both Gruber et al (2022) and Bunamano and Rovelli (2022), which discuss the relation between physical time and human time. I claim here, contrary to many views discussed there, that there is no foundational conflict…
The evolutionary origins of ageing and age-associated diseases continue to pose a fundamental question in biology. This study is concerned with a recently proposed framework, which conceptualises development and ageing as a continuous…
The question of whether artificial beings or machines could become self-aware or consciousness has been a philosophical question for centuries. The main problem is that self-awareness cannot be observed from an outside perspective and the…
Biological systems reach organizational complexity that far exceeds the complexity of any known inanimate objects. Biological entities undoubtedly obey the laws of quantum physics and statistical mechanics. However, is modern physics…