Consciousness
I believe that there is a neurocomputational basis for conscious experience. I seek to understand that underlying mechanism in order to explain subjective experience and to provide a framework for understanding the many aspects of consciousness. I also aim to take advantage of that learning in aid of developing flexible and adaptive artificial intelligence.
My research strategy is as follows:
- Start from an opinionated assumption that a connectionist computational explanation exists for consciousness in general, and for subjective experience in particular.
- Apply a design stance - how might we build something that emulates the external and internal behaviours that we observe.
- Take learnings from philosophy, neuroscience, evolution, behavioural studies, and AI.
- Drive explanations by focussing on why a certain capability would have evolved in the first place.
- Recognise that any solution will only be complete when taking a systems approach: that every part of the brain interacts with and influences every other part. This occurs during the construction of a given behaviour or thought, over the course of development of the individual, and at the scale of evolution.
Latest report
Key takeaways:
- Complex brains in complex environments require iterative processing.
- Iterative processing requires the evolution of meta-management.
- Meta-management is architected as an emergent process enabled by a simple feedback loop.
- Subjective experience is a (non-epiphenomenal) side effect of meta-management.
Topics
Major topics:
- A Theory of Consciousness
- Proto AGI v1
- Focusing on the Why
- Consciousness is a Semiotic Meta-management Feedback Loop
Other topics:
- Background to A Theory of Mind
- The analogy of the Thalamic symbiote
- Visceral Loop
- The Error Prone Brain
Emulations
Archived ideas
As ideas progress, old ideas are replaced. Some of my older theories are accessible from the Theory Archive.