Related papers: A thought experiment on consciousness
The mind-body problem is reviewed in the context of a non-technical account of quantum information theory. The importance of clearly defining: `what is physical?' is highlighted, since only then can we give meaning to the concept…
In the context of theories of the connection between mind and brain, physicalism is the demand that all is basically purely physical. But the concept of "physical" embodied in this demand is characterized essentially by the properties of…
Up to now, we have been faced with an age old fundamental dilemma posed by the mind-brain interaction problem, i.e. how is it that the mind which is subjective and immaterial, can interact with the brain which is objective and material?…
The Machine Consciousness Hypothesis states that consciousness is a substrate-free functional property of computational systems capable of second-order perception. I propose a research program to investigate this idea in silico by studying…
The scope of human consciousness includes states departing from what most of us experience as ordinary wakefulness. These altered states of consciousness constitute a prime opportunity to study how global changes in brain activity relate to…
It has been said that complexity lies between order and disorder. In the case of brain activity, and physiology in general, complexity issues are being considered with increased emphasis. We sought to identify features of brain organization…
I start from the fundamental principles of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, without probability, and interpret them using the notion of coexistence: a quantum state can be read, not uniquely, as a coexistence of other quantum states,…
The wave-particle duality is a mind-body one. In the real 3d-space there exists only the particle; the wave exists in its consciousness, as well as the reflection of the whole world. If there are many particles, their distribution in…
Leibniz thought experiment of perception, sensing, and thinking is reconsidered. We try to understand Leibniz picture in view of our knowledge of basic neuroscience. In particular we can see how the emergence of consciousness could in…
The brain is very often viewed as a network, be it at small scale made of cells, mostly neurons, or at larger scale made of neuronal assemblies. Here we introduce a conjecture, in the spirit of a philosophical though experiment, which…
In a many body system, constituents interact with each other, forming a recursive pattern of interaction and giving rise to many interesting phenomena. Based upon concepts of the modern many body theory, a model for a generic many body…
The brain-as-computer metaphor has anchored the professed computational nature of the mind, wresting it down from the intangible logic of Platonic philosophy to a material basis for empirical science. However, as with many long-lasting…
In this paper the author presents some non-conventional thoughts on the complexity of the Universe and the algorithmic reproducibility of the human brain, essentially sparked off by the notion of algorithmic complexity. We must warn that…
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…
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…
In many body systems, constituents interact with each other, forming a recursive pattern of mutual interaction and giving rise to many interesting phenomena. Based upon concepts of the modern many body theory, a model for a generic many…
It is normally claimed that physical systems create and influence consciousness, but that consciousness cannot influence physical systems. However, I believe that this idea is flawed, and I suggest the following experiments as a way of…
Finding general principles underlying brain function has been appealing to scientists. Indeed, in some branches of science like physics and chemistry (and to some degree biology) a general theory often can capture the essence of a wide…
The paper attempts to describe the space of possible mind designs by first equating all minds to software. Next it proves some interesting properties of the mind design space such as infinitude of minds, size and representation complexity…
As far as algorithmic thinking is bound by symbolic paper-and-pencil operations, the Church-Turing thesis appears to hold. But is physics, and even more so, is the human mind, bound by symbolic paper-and-pencil operations? What about the…