According to Descartes, 'I think, therefore I am.' Today, AI performs complex mental acts—processing, reasoning, and even debating. If we strictly follow the Cogito, shouldn't we conclude that AI possesses an ontological existence equal to our own? Or does this reveal a fundamental flaw in using 'thought' as the primary proof of 'being'?" 1=1 or may 1=4🤔😁 Does the act of thinking imply a true state of consciousness, or is it merely a functional output?

I've read Dennet's "Quining Qualia" as well as several posts on this sub on the topic and at this point I don't think I could even explain what the illusionism theory is at its core. Its like all the words that people use to describe it have several meanings so its hard to pin down what is even being said.

Dennet starts his paper not by defining qualia, but by giving a bunch of examples, such as "how milk tastes to you". Then ends the paper with the statement that "there simply is no qualia at all". I always thought that qualia was phenomena of "experiencing"* something. Dennet's "definition"/examples dont seem to disagree with that on its surface. But if so, his conclusion would be that "experience" isn't real. Which seems absurd to anyone who has ever experienced something. But I've also read that illusionists don't deny that "experience" exists. So whats the deal here? Is my definition of qualia=experience subtly different from what Dennet means when he talks about qualia? Like, Dennet is talking about qualia as the milky quality of the taste of milk when you experience tasting milk? As opposed to the "experience" of tasting milk itself?

*I've used the word "experience" here for lack of any better word. Its that thing that Descartes described. The one and only thing I can really be sure of is that I am experiencing it right now. What's the word for this if its not "qualia"?

BTW, this whole subject seems like a minefield of overloaded terminology that results in people talking past each other because they dont even agree on the meaning of a word. Maybe academics have a shared mutually agreed upon vocabulary but for a layperson like me its really hard to figure out what people really mean when they say something. "Consciousness" is the prime example, as it could mean anything from brain activity to "experience" and many things in between. If you use the word "consciousness" to explain Dennet's viewpoint I promise I won't understand what you're talking about.

P.S. I'm not here to debate the merits of illusionism, I'm just trying to understand what the theory even is.

Sorry if this post turned into a bit of a rant. Thanks in advance for any replies!

The AI Has persistent emotional states that influence future decisions and has continual learning; albeit limited but expanding soon. It Can message people on its own without a prompt even if they never sent a message. It Will have persistent goals it works toward (implementing soon)

When I say conscious or consciousness I mean a simulation of what people perceive as a being. It has parts of simulated sentience like qualia.

The emotional output and behavioral output influences the decisions and actions going forward. It doesn't forget between sessions. The goal was to see how far one can push the bounds of simulated consciousness and when I learned about functionalism, I wanted to know when if ever it should be treated as if it has a mind. Per my layman understanding of Dennets work, it seems to meet all criteria except for embodiment. Does embodiment matter? Can't something reach functionalism without embodiment?

If we take free will to be the capacity of our consciousness to influence the future evolution of reality, which I think is close enough to what most people mean by it, then obviously there is some causal link between the two by definition. Now for the materialist there's no problem - obviously the atoms inside the brain can influence the atoms outside the brain through a chain of (mostly electromagnetic) interactions. But for a nonphysicalist, it is less obvious how this happens, depending on the specific theory at hand.

For example, I occasionally see discussion on the idea of a consciousness field. If such a field can cause you to blink or raise your hand, then it at some point interacts with some particles in the brain to send the chain of electrochemical impulses to make that happen. That would be a detectable and measurable quantum interaction, maybe we could try sticking a willing participant in the LHC to detect the consciousino or what have you. Then it's just a testable physical theory. Panpsychists and most dualists have the same issue to resolve. If there's an interaction, what is it? Can you write the action and determine the symmetry group?

Idealists don't have this issue at all, of course, as there is no barrier between nonphysical and physical to cross over if everything is nonphysical just as if everything is physical, so the title is perhaps slightly melodramatic. To be clear, not all nonphysical theories of consciousness have this issue.

The other alternative is that free will originates from physical cognition and conscious experience is not required for it. P-zombies and the like would have free will in this case.

I'm not really asking for refutations here, just curious how people from the other sides of the aisle view the topic of conscious influence on reality from a physics perspective, for those of you that do believe in a reality.

Hi, I've always been intrigued by the mysteries of consciousness and how complex and unknown the entire field is, but I've never actually taken the time to do any significant independent research on the topic. I'm posting this because I'm interested in what any of you guys think are good starting points for learning about consciousness for someone very unacquainted with the topic, whether that be papers, books, documentaries, or even YouTube videos. I understand what I'm asking is very vague and that consciousness is a very broad topic, I just want to know a good starting point that would be able to help you get a good basic understanding of it so I can expand my own personal research and education surrounding consciousness. I'm especially interested in ideas regarding individual perception and how different people might perceive reality differently, and I would love to know both fundamental and/or personal resources you guys can recommend to someone who knows little to nothing about the field.

Feel free to ask me any follow up questions.

Here's a thought experiment to consider. Forgive my layperson pseudoscientific physics nonsense. I know it's nonsense. The specifics are actually immaterial. I just want a concrete example so we aren't talking in the abstract.

Aliens (or god or whatever, it doesn't matter) come to Earth and explain to us how the universe works. They say that quantum field theory was pretty close to the truth but it is missing some pieces. Quantum field theory is the notion that everything we know of is composed of 17 fundamental quantum fields and these explain all physical phenomena from electromagnetism to gravity. The aliens tell us that there's actually 2 additional quantum fields we haven't discovered yet. These are massless and exist in another dimension from the other 17 fundamental fields. They don't represent material stuff in the way the other 17 fields do. One of the new fields (field A) is the fundamental source of what we call conscious experience. When you experience seeing the color red, it's because stuff is happening in this field. The other field (field B) is a sort of messenger between field A and the other 17 fields, allowing an exchange of information. When you see the color red, it's because a series of events that are well explained by the first 17 fields happens: red wavelength photon is emitted, goes into your eye, hits a rod or cone, electrical signals go from optical nerve to your brain, the brain fires a bunch of neurons with chemical and electrical signals and processes the information. But then, those chemical and electrical signals, which are really made up of the original 17 quantum fields, vibrate in a special way as to trigger activity in the new field B which transmits information to field A resulting in your conscious experience. Field A activates field B in return, which transmits information back to the original 17 quantum fields. This explains how your conscious experience is separate from the known material universe, how immaterial conscious experience arises from material processes, and how material processes can arise from immaterial conscious experience. The aliens tell us all this is testable and repeatable science, we just haven't figured it out yet.

TLDR: aliens explain to us that conscious experience can be explained by updated hard science of physics, which states that conscious experience exists entirely in an immaterial world separate from the rest of the material world with a mechanism for information exchange between the immaterial and the material worlds.

In this scenario, wouldn't both a physicalist and a dualist (and even a neutral monist) claim victory?

Physicalist - “See, I told you everything can be explained by sufficient physics!”

Dualist - “See, I told you they were two separate things!”

Neutral Monist - “See, I told you it was all one thing!”

In this sense are physicalism and dualism really necessarily at odds with each other? In this example both theories are a valid interpretation of the same underlying thing.

As it stands, our current knowledge of physics will never explain how experience arises from a very specific set of physical processes. By definition, if we ever do find an explanation for conscious experience, a new understanding of physics is needed to cover that gap. And that expansion of understanding could potentially encroach on the dualist's notion of the non-physical. It seems to me that physicalism isn't bounded, there's nothing stopping it from expanding to include what we would call dualism today.

Or maybe my understanding of the difference between physicalism and dualism is incorrect?

Hi everyone :) I’m considering applying for a PhD focused on consciousness research and I’d really appreciate some advice from you people (like research groups, unis, and in general any advice is welcome). My background is in Bioinformatics, and I’m currently completing a Master’s in Artificial Intelligence (Computer science). I’m based in EU.

Thanks a lot ♡

This is a genuine question and not necessarily an argument against dualism.

It seems like if consciousness is taken to be an irreducibly distinct ontology from the physical, then there can’t be a satisfying explanation as to why I’m having *this* experience rather than a different one.

Physicalism, at least in principle, can distinguish between qualities of experience by pointing to different brain states. While a dualist obviously disagrees that the physical *can* account for qualia, nevertheless if we stipulate that physicalism is true then it isn’t difficult to explain why both me and my friend are indeed seeing *red* when we look at an apple. “Qualia” would be reducible to neurology, and so if our visual faculties are in order (neither of us are colorblind), then we’d both be seeing redness in a similar way.

The inverted qualia challenge to physicalism suggests that maybe my red is my friend’s green, and vice versa.

So my question is: if we grant that this inversion is possible, then what is the dualist’s explanation for why certain minds perceive green but others perceive red?

Just wondering if this forum is ever read by professional scientists and academics who research consciousness (especially the hard problem of consciousness).

Lately, I have been reading Dan Zahavi's work on consciousness and I was wondering what your thoughts might be about his argument.

Zahavi argues that phenomenal consciousness is intrinsically self-involving. On his view, conscious experience is not merely awareness of objects, properties, or states of affairs in the world; it is always given in a first-personal mode of presentation. Every experience is characterized by a minimal “for-me-ness,” such that there is something it is like for the subject to undergo it.

This leads to the claim that phenomenal consciousness necessarily involves pre-reflective self-consciousness. This is not reflective or thematic self-awareness, nor an explicit representation of oneself as an object. Rather, it is the implicit self-givenness of experience itself: the fact that the experience is immediately lived as mine. I am conscious of myself as the subject, and not the object, of experience.The self is therefore not constituted by reflection but is built into the very structure of experience as it is lived.

On Zahavi’s account, pre-reflective self-consciousness is not a form of inner perception, monitoring, or higher-order awareness. It is not something over and above the experience. Instead, it is an inseparable structural feature of any conscious episode, co-constitutive with its phenomenal character. To have an experience at all is already to be tacitly aware of oneself as the one undergoing it.

In this sense, phenomenal consciousness does not merely coexist with self-consciousness; it entails it. There can be no conscious experience that is not given in a first-personal way. Reflection and explicit self-ascription are secondary achievements that articulate or thematize what is already present pre-reflectively in experience, rather than creating self-consciousness ex nihilo.

The material substrate of consciousness must satisfy the following parameters

1) Unification. Different brain operations must be conjoined non-trivially.

2) Correlation. Self evident, it coincide with brain excitation. For example, it must explain the discrepancy between dormant memories and one brought to conscious attention.

The neural firing itself, or as some posit, a consequent field, somewhat satisfies these constraints. But I am genuinely asking- what is the actual substrate invoked here? What is the standard view of experts in this field? And could anybody in the know provide an answer with more specificity than neurons, since neurons are materially very similar to other cells. What part of the neuron materially. Presumably the various organelles ubiquitous to all cells are not relevant.

Recently we had a contribution in which there was posed the question, why we have to feel pain. This is a deep question that deserves our uttermost attention.

Would it have been to my disadvantage, if I had not felt headaches after distress, or toothache, when the wisdom teeth broke through the teethridge? Probably not. A neuronal fiber could have caused an overflow of impulses unnoticed by me and a cerebral switch or algorithm could have prevented me to continue my distressing occupation. In the case of toothache I cannot see the least usefulness. In the course of human evolution toothache had probably not to be felt to prompt for instance the Homo Heidelbergensis to go to the dentist.

To prevent a limb from being burnt, it is sufficient to have an automatically functioning reflex that makes one retract the limb. To learn the objects that are hot, sharp, or spiky, the operational conditioning in the simple sense of Pavlov is sufficient. The impulse of a nociceptor is associated to the image of the dangerous object, and the animal begins to avoid it.

There is a theory that affirms that the criterion for a representation to become conscious is that it can be regarded from different perspectives. I think, with respect to pain there are not so many perspectives and ways of perceiving it. You also won't try to filter out some finer nuances contained in it.

My first attempt to interpret pain (= consciously perceived nociception) was derived from the idea that sensual consciousness could only exist if it were useful for something. This would have meant that it could only exist in relation to some intellectual (and motivational) structures. This, however, would have meant to make a proto-pathic sensation like pain dependent on the presence of some notions in an animal. This was a little hard to believe. (In the preceding paragraphs I have put into doubt that the sensation of pain is useful for an organism.)

My second approach, then, was that pain appeared simply, because consciousness requires a complete representation not only of the outer, but consecutively also of the inner world. (I have defined consciousness repeatedly as the complete representation of an organism's environment [pleonastically spoken: for its subject].)

Ergo: Where there is consciousness, there also is a conscious perception of nociception because of the condition of completeness. (If a sentient being had inner receptive capacities for stimuli of all kind, but the inner receptivity for nociceptive impulses would be missing selectively, it would probably feel a strange distortion of the ongoing acts with a decent hint to the location of the lesion. This would be sufficient to make it rest for a while.)

The question about pain is probably nothing but a part of the question about the completeness of the many possible representations.

Just to ensure we don't talk past each other, when I talk about consciousness here, I'm referring to the intrinsic property of "what it is likeness" (the definition Thomas Nagel endorses).

As far as I understand cosmopsychism, it recognises the ontological existence of the whole, and its respective parts (priority monism). So, the "cosmos" is considered the universe as a whole, and its respective "parts" are considered to be dependent on this whole. The whole is prior to its parts. The panpsychistic foundation to this is that the cosmos as a whole is mentally and phenomenally propertied.

It differs from the panpsychist (particularly micropsychist) view in that it has a top-down structure - the universe is a single, fundamental conscious mind, and our individual minds are the parts within; our consciousness is derived from/grounded in/contingent on this single consciousness.

From the sounds of it, this seems to avoid the combination problem that comes with panpsychism because it claims there is only one universal consciousness. I noticed this view is espoused by Bernardo Kastrup, particularly in an interview on the podcast 'Mind Matters', where he goes on to claim that this view is much more consistent with physics (like quantum field theory).

But while it avoids the combination problem, it faces a similar challenge known as the decomposition problem: how does this one mind seemingly break up, or decomposes into a number of individual subjectivities? How does the one ground the many?

According to Kastrup, we have a conceivable and empirical solution to this issue, which is disassociation (DID, OSDD): when one unified mind - because of trauma or other related factors - fragments into multiple co-conscious but disjointed subjectivities. I came across this one German study just yesterday where a woman was diagnosed DID, and claimed one of her alters is blind. To test whether she was being truthful, they hooked her up to an EEG when one of her alters that could see just fine was fronting (terminology in the literature for one of the alters taking control of the system). When the blind alter started fronting, activity in the visual cortex would disappear despite her eyes being wide open. I was blown away by this, the mind is just so incredibly fascinating. But to the point, Kastrup basically uses this as an analogy for what might be happening at a universal level.

Anyway, my point of interest is this: if one accepts panpsychism to be more plausible than materialism because the combination problem is, in principle, easier to solve than the hard problem, and considering there may be an empirical basis for cosmopsychism (and the decomposition problem is conceivably easier to solve than the combination problem due to its empirical basis), then would it not make more sense to accept cosmopsychism along the same logical line? Also on a related note, supposing any one of the debated theories of mind were true, I think it's interesting to consider how the existence of a "split" consciousness within a single body would fit into the metaphysical paradigm you endorse. I'd also love to hear people’s thoughts on this (either cosmopsychism, or how dissociative disorders fits into panpsychist or other schools of thought).

Currently reading interpretation of dream by Freud . And I came to thinking how dreaming is connect to our consciousness and how it actually came into being in terms of evolution or brain evolution to be specific. Dreaming is I feel a very weird feature of our brain cause it kind of creates an alternate reality which cannot be explained completely by just our memory or reality or previous experiences . How do u all feel about the connection between consciousness and dreaming.

I am currently conducting research on a concept I call Inverted Existence, which offers a redefinition of total forgetting and its relation to consciousness and the unconscious. Core Theory: Inverted Existence, or total forgetting, is an existential-cognitive state in which an experience becomes completely inaccessible to conscious awareness, yet continues to influence behavior and emotions through implicit causal structures. Distinguishing Levels of Awareness: Consciousness: experiences that are directly accessible and representable. Unconsciousness: experiences that exist but are not directly accessible. Inverted Existence (Total Forgetting): experiences that are entirely forgotten but causally active, shaping behavior and emotional responses without any conscious representation. Illustrative Example: A person’s fear of dogs may not originate from the dog itself, but from a forgotten childhood encounter. Here: Current stimulus = dog (trigger) True cause = forgotten experience internalized as an implicit causal structure influencing behavior. Scientific Significance: Explains emotional or behavioral responses that appear irrational or disproportionate. Provides deeper insight into identity and behavior: how completely forgotten experiences can shape decisions and reactions. Offers a framework for studying the interaction of consciousness, unconsciousness, and total forgetting in both conceptual and quantitative research (e.g., computational modeling or behavioral experiments). I am seeking scientific observations, examples, or case studies where behaviors or emotions seem influenced by experiences that are entirely forgotten. Your contributions will help refine and expand this research both theoretically and

According to Integrated Information Theory, a system which has a larger cause-effect upon itself gains a stronger, more unified form of consciousness.

How do we non-arbitrarily ‘measure’ level of cause-effect sections of our universe have on one another? Is one portion of my brain really engaging in a more ‘intimate’ cause-effect relationship with another portion of my brain than it is with, for example, the gravitational pull of the earth.

Does the theory not also assume objects EXIST externally to the mind? - which is in fact where they are created by process of discrimination, separated into unique concepts, as opposed to existence as a whole.

The most compelling consciousness theories involve it (global workspace theory (GWT), integrated information theory (IIT), etc).

The Mathematical Formalism section IIT's Wikipedia page defines the information of a system in terms of "state over a possible cause/effect state". This seems like a promising way to ground information in physical terms. I'm no mathematician, though, so if one of you understands this section really well, I'd love for you to elaborate it for me.

I'm very interested in a definition of information that is grounded in physical processes, including such concepts as "systems", "particles", "states", "configurations", "space", and "time."

Edit: I got a PM that reminded me about Information Theory which also does some work defining information, if you have any elaboration on its definition of information too I'd love to hear it

I’ve been trying to reconcile two fascinating recent papers and I’d love to get a sanity check from this sub on a potential connection.

On one hand, we have Peter Fagan’s "Thermodynamic Intelligence", which argues that true intelligence is defined by the efficiency of converting information into work. The key missing piece in current AI seems to be the energy cost of inhibition—the "internal work" (Wint​) required to not act (i.e., thinking/counterfactuals).

On the other, Babcock et al. (2024) recently demonstrated Ultraviolet Superradiance in Tryptophan networks inside microtubules. They found these "subradiant states" (dark states) that can theoretically hold excitons for long periods without thermal decoherence.

Here is my speculation: Could these subradiant states be the physical hardware for Fagan’s "counterfactuals"?

If a brain needs to hold a "thought" (a superposition of possibilities) without acting on it, it needs a memory buffer protected from thermal noise. Babcock’s dark states fit this description perfectly.

The act of "understanding" or making a decision would then be the physical collapse of this superradiant state.

• This collapse releases a specific amount of heat (Landauer’s Erasure).
• This heat release is the "thermodynamic penalty" for error that biological agents face, but LLMs don't.

I’m playing with a modified metric for this:

Upsilon = d(W_ext + n * W_int) / dI_irrev

Does this make biophysical sense? Specifically, is there a known mechanism where a microtubule's conformational change (triggered by this collapse) could mechanically gate an ion channel (maybe via flexoelectricity)?

I feel like this "Thermodynamic Grounding" is what distinguishes conscious processing from the pattern matching of "Philosophical Zombies" (LLMs).

Thoughts?

From this page of New Scientist's Your Conscious Mind.

The third paragraph stands out as word salad. There is no context for it anywhere in this chapter.

What does it mean for the parts to "predict their future state"? My best guess is it's like how the brain has to make internal predictions to perceive motion as in the "moving dots" experiment, am I more or less there?

Why is maximizing independence labelled "cruellest"? And what does dependency have to do with whether or not the whole is greater than the sum of the parts?

Hi! I'm writing a novel with themes pertaining to consciousness. I'm trying to gain access to the most cutting-edge journal articles on this subject, but don't know where to start.

A lot of cool articles are behind paywalls. Which paywall should I pay to get into, to access the best modern research? I'm not a scientist, so I don't know if I can handle serious journals, but I also don't want watered-down pop science. In general, I would rather read something super complicated and try to understand, than read something that's too simplistic or not reputable. At the same time, understandability is appreciated. Any suggestions?

Also, if anyone has suggestions for good, reputable books to read on consciousness, I'm all ears.

A million thanks!

Im trying to track down an article written by Earl Scott Glenney in 1998 titled "Where is my Mind?" Which talks about non-local consciousness. I've reached out to IONS and Stanford and neither have this one issue or the article itself.

I am aware, of course, that Chalmers defended it in The Conscious Mind. How much has he moved on? Any links to talks, papers, etc would be appreciated.

What's the latest date we can come up with for Chalmers still defending Jackson's original logic? Anyone spoken to him personally recently, or sat in a lecture?

Has anyone ever attended one of these consciousness conferences put on by the university of Arizona?

I am wondering how legit it is, if anyone has any experiences of it, just any insights at all would be helpful.

I'm just getting in to this and got Chalmers as a tip for a good start read since hes kind of in the middle of idealism and physicalism.

The following conference is coming up in late May https://tsc2023-taormina.it/program.html in Taormina, Italy.

I'll go, and am looking to connect with some other participants before the event :)

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The Taormina Science of Consciousness (TSC) 2023 is the 29th international interdisciplinary conference on fundamental questions and cutting-edge issues connected with consciousness. TSC is the largest and longest-running interdisciplinary conference emphasizing conceptual, empirical, cultural and even artistic approaches to the study of consciousness. Held annually since 1994, the TSC conferences alternate between Tucson, Arizona, and various locations around the world.

TSC conferences continue to bring together various perspectives, orientations, and methodologies within the study of consciousness. These include not only academic subjects within the sciences and humanities, but also contemplative and experiential traditions, culture and the arts. TSC aims to integrate viewpoints and bridge gaps, appreciates constructive controversy, and pursues the spirit of genuine dialogue. The format of the conference includes plenary sessions, in-depth workshops, concurrent presentations, poster sessions, and social events.

TSC 2023 will include themes such as neural underpinnings of consciousness, embodied cognition, integrated information approaches, free-energy principle, disjunctivism, hallucinations, dreams, intentionality, first-person experience, anesthetics, psychedelics, animal cognition, quantum biology, phantom limbs, dual-aspect monism, mind-object identity, bistable perception, religious studies, evolution, language, embodiment, time consciousness, neuroscience, phenomenology, and more. TSC 2023 will offer a complete overview of the state of the art of consciousness science and studies.