Human and Machine Consciousness

David Gamez

Description

Consciousness is widely perceived as one of the most fundamental, interesting and difficult problems of our time. However, we still know next to nothing about the relationship between consciousness and the brain and we can only speculate about the consciousness of animals and machines.

Human and Machine Consciousness presents a new foundation for the scientific study of consciousness. It sets out a bold interpretation of consciousness that neutralizes the philosophical problems and explains how we can make scientific predictions about the consciousness of animals, brain-damaged patients and machines.

Gamez interprets the scientific study of consciousness as a search for mathematical theories that map between measurements of consciousness and measurements of the physical world. We can use artificial intelligence to discover these theories and they could make accurate predictions about the consciousness of humans, animals and artificial systems. Human and Machine Consciousness also provides original insights into unusual conscious experiences, such as hallucinations, religious experiences and out-of-body states, and demonstrates how ‘designer’ states of consciousness could be created in the future.

Gamez explains difficult concepts in a clear way that closely engages with scientific research. His punchy, concise prose is packed with vivid examples, making it suitable for the educated general reader as well as philosophers and scientists. Problems are brought to life in colourful illustrations and a helpful summary is given at the end of each chapter. The endnotes provide detailed discussions of individual points and full references to the scientific and philosophical literature.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Consciousness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Experience
• Brain

Informations

• Publié par: Open Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 07 mars 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783743018
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

Extrait

HUMAN AND MACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS


Human and Machine Consciousness
David Gamez






https://www.openbookpublishers.com
© 2018 David Gamez


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
David Gamez. Human and Machine Consciousness . Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2018. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0107
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ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-298-1
ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-299-8
ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-300-1
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-301-8
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-78374-302-5
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0107
Cover image: Stereogram created by David Gamez with data from Anderson Winkler ( https://brainder.org/research/brain-for-blender/ ) licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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This book is dedicated to the first artificial system that understands it.
A flash, a mantling, and the ferment rises,
Thus, in this moment, hope materializes,
A mighty project may at first seem mad,
But now we laugh, the ways of chance forseeing:
A thinker then, in mind’s deep wonder clad,
May give at last a thinking brain its being.
[…]
Now chimes the glass, a note of sweetest strength,
It clouds, it clears, my utmost hope it proves,
For there my longing eyes behold at length
A dapper form, that lives and breathes and moves.
My mannikin! What can the world ask more?
The mystery is brought to light of day.
Now comes the whisper we are waiting for:
He forms his speech, has clear-cut words to say.
Goethe, Faust


Acknowledgements
I am extremely grateful to Barry Cooper and the John Templeton Foundation for supporting this work (Project ID 15619: ‘Mind, Mechanism and Mathematics: Turing Centenary Research Project’). This grant gave me the time that I needed to sit down and write this book.
I have really appreciated the help of Anil Seth, who supported my application for a Turing Fellowship and was very welcoming during my time at the University of Sussex. I am also grateful to the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science and the Department of Informatics at the University of Sussex for giving me a place to work. I greatly enjoyed conversations about consciousness with my colleagues at Sussex.
I would also like to thank Owen Holland, whose CRONOS project started my work on human and machine consciousness, and the reviewers of this book, who had many helpful suggestions. I owe a warm debt of gratitude to my parents, Alejandro and Penny Gamez, who have always given me a great deal of support and encouragement.


Contents
List of Illustrations
1
1.
Introduction
3
2.
The Emergence of the Concept of Consciousness
9
3.
The Philosophy and Science of Consciousness
33
4.
The Measurement of Consciousness
43
5.
From Correlates to Theories of Consciousness
69
6.
Physical Theories of Consciousness
85
7.
Information Theories of Consciousness
93
8.
Computation Theories of Consciousness
103
9.
Predictions and Deductions about Consciousness
113
10.
Modification and Enhancement of Consciousness
125
11.
Machine Consciousness
135
12.
Conclusion
149
Appendix: Definitions, Assumptions, Lemmas and Constraints
159
Endnotes
165
Bibliography
201
Index
219


List of Illustrations
All images are © David Gamez, CC BY 4.0.
2.1.
Visual representation of a bubble of perception.
12
2.2.
The presence of an invisible god explains regularities in the visible world.
14
2.3.
Colour illusion.
17
2.4.
Primary and secondary qualities.
19
2.5.
The relationship between a bubble of experience and a brain.
21
2.6.
Interpretation of physical objects as black boxes.
23
2.7.
The relationship between a bubble of experience and an invisible physical brain.
25
2.8.
The emergence of the concept of consciousness.
28
3.1.
The use of imagination to solve a scientific problem.
35
3.2.
Imagination cannot be used to understand the relationship between consciousness and the invisible physical world.
38
3.3.
Learnt association between consciously experienced brain activity and the sensation of an ice cube.
39
4.1.
Problem of colour inversion.
51
4.2.
Some of the definitions and assumptions that are required for scientific experiments on consciousness.
53
4.3.
The relationship between macro- and micro-scale e-causal events.
58
4.4.
Assumptions about the relationship between CC sets, consciousness and first-person reports.
60
5.1.
The measurement of an elephant’s height in a scientist’s bubble of experience.
70
5.2.
Theory of consciousness (c-theory).
79
7.1.
Information c-theory.
97
8.1.
Soap bubble computer.
104
9.1.
Testing a c-theory’s prediction about a conscious state.
114
9.2.
Testing a c-theory’s prediction about a physical state.
115
9.3.
Deduction of the conscious state of a bat.
119
10.1.
Modifications of a bubble of experience.
128
10.2.
A reliable c-theory is used to realize a desired state of consciousness.
129
11.1.
A reliable c-theory is used to build a MC4 machine.
138
11.2.
A reliable c-theory is used to deduce the consciousness of an artificial system.
139


1. Introduction


© David Gamez, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0107.01
Consciousness is extremely important to us. Without consciousness, there is just nothingness, death, night. It is a crime to kill a person who is potentially conscious. Permanently unconscious people are left to die. Religious people face death with hope because they believe that their conscious souls will break free from their physical bodies.
We know next to nothing about consciousness and its relationship to the physical world. The science of consciousness is mired in philosophical problems. We can only guess about the consciousness of coma patients, infants and animals. We have no idea about the consciousness of artificial systems.
This book neutralizes the philosophical problems with consciousness and clears the way for scientific research. It explains how we can develop mathematical theories that can make believable predictions about consciousness.
The first obstacles that need to be overcome are the metaphysical theories of consciousness. Some people claim that consciousness is a separate substance; other people believe that it is identical to the physical world. These theories generate endless debates and it is very difficult to prove or refute them. This book eliminates some of these theories and suspends judgement about the rest.
The next obstacle is the hard problem of consciousness. This typically appears when people try and fail to imagine how colourful conscious sensations are related to the colourless world of modern physics. This book breaks the hard problem of consciousness down into a pseudo problem, a difficult problem and a set of brute regularities.
Some problems with consciousness cannot be solved. For example, we cannot prove that a person is conscious. These problems affect our ability to measure consciousness through first-person reports. This book neutralizes these problems by making assumptions . The results from the science of consciousness can then be considered to be true given these assumptions .
When these obstacles have been