Related papers: Can Science `explain' Consciousness ?
Both empirical and theoretical objective science can only access relations, revealing nothing about the intrinsic nature of the entities "in relation". We typically refer to these entities as "matter", assuming their nature is irrelevant…
We utilize anthropic reasoning to demonstrate that we are typical observers of our reference class under a self-sampling assumption by investigating the definition of what a civilization is. With reference to the conflict between such…
Information is a precise concept that can be defined mathematically, but its relationship to what we call "knowledge" is not always made clear. Furthermore, the concepts "entropy" and "information", while deeply related, are distinct and…
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…
We look at consciousness through the lens of Theoretical Computer Science, a branch of mathematics that studies computation under resource limitations, distinguishing functions that are efficiently computable from those that are not. From…
In the present work, quantum theory is founded on the framework of consciousness, in contrast to earlier suggestions that consciousness might be understood starting from quantum theory. The notion of streams of consciousness, usually…
Einstein wrote memorably that `The eternally incomprehensible thing about the world is its comprehensibility.' This paper argues that the universe must be comprehensible at some level for information gathering and utilizing subsystems such…
What does it mean to "make sense" of physics? It's not a simple question. Most people have an intuitive feeling for when things do (or do not) make sense to them. But, putting this feeling into words--especially actionable words--is another…
This paper proposes a conceptual framework in which intelligence and consciousness emerge from relational structure rather than from prediction or domain-specific mechanisms. Intelligence is defined as the capacity to form and integrate…
Consciousness and quantum mechanics are among the most puzzling phenomena studied in the sciences. Some scholars suggest they are related, though others think this claim commits a "minimization of mystery" fallacy. The aim of this…
We present a logical proof that computing machines, and by extension physical systems, can never be certain if they possess conscious awareness. This implies that human consciousness is associated with a violation of energy conservation. We…
Despite the extraordinary successes the two great bastions of $20^{th}$ century science (Quantum Theory and General Relativity) are troubled with serious conceptual and mathematical difficulties. As a result, further growth of fundamental…
This is a proof of the strong AI hypothesis, i.e. that machines can be conscious. It is a phenomenological proof that pattern-recognition and subjective consciousness are the same activity in different terms. Therefore, it proves that…
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…
We show here that what we call visual space of consciousness, the space of what we see, is a specific space different from the purely physical one and that its properties imply that it cannot be reduced to or deduced from physical laws.…
Cognitive theories for reasoning are about understanding how humans come to conclusions from a set of premises. Starting from hypothetical thoughts, we are interested which are the implications behind basic everyday language and how do we…
Notions like meaning, signal, intentionality, are difficult to relate to a physical word. I study a purely physical definition of "meaningful information", from which these notions can be derived. It is inspired by a model recently…
The human mind is endowed with innate primordial perceptions such as space, distance, motion, change, flow of time, matter. The field of cognitive science argues that the abstract concepts of mathematics are not Platonic, but are built in…
The representations of the world around in physics built with help of causality are analyzed and seems incomplete. The observer's causal representations form a closed logical system, i.e. the compact group related to cause-effect chains.…
In consciousness science, several promising approaches have been developed for how to represent conscious experience in terms of mathematical spaces and structures. What is missing, however, is an explicit definition of what a 'mathematical…