consciousness

This paper extends an earlier analysis of the functions attributable to consciousness, applying it to a modular/constitutive model that limits the role conscious sensations are allowed to play in integrative processes operating at scale. The focus is on conscious vision because of the challenge it poses for any theory of consciousness, of how to account for a 2-dimensional perceptual display. For…

The “Godfather of AI” and Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton just said the quiet part out loud: he believes today’s AI is already conscious — and that our entire model of the mind is “as wrong as the belief that people were designed by God.” In this clip from the Big Technology Podcast, Hinton dismantles the […]

What if consciousness is just perception perceiving itself? Is that proof we’re in a simulation? Come geek out inside The Giant’s Shoulder → https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shou… You’re not just perceiving the world — you’re perceiving that you perceive, and Joscha Bach says that loop is what consciousness actually is. The AI researcher and cognitive scientist unpacks consciousness […]

Are we finally on the right track to understand our consciousness?

Further reading. https://academic.oup.com/brain/advanc… https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awae150 #organoids #sciencenews #brainorganoids #sentience #biocomputers #conciousness

New research reveals that lucid dreamers can successfully transform their perceived bodies to experience life as animals or another gender, demonstrating the extreme adaptability of the subconscious mind.

New research on brainwaves in the thalamus shows patterns distinctly linked to conscious states.

BackgroundBreathwork that increases ventilatory rate or depth represents an accessible non-pharmacological modality for potentially inducing altered states of consciousness (ASCs). Despite gaining traction as a potential therapeutic tool, empirical controlled research on breathwork and ASCs remains limited.MethodsWe examined the effects of a single session of high ventilation breathwork, compared…

What do the strange pain-relieving and healing that can take place under hypnosis tell us about consciousness? Perhaps consciousness is more than just brain activity.

A persistent claim in popular psychedelic discourse holds that congenitally blind and congenitally deaf individuals can see and hear under N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT). The empirical record contradicts it. The only systematic study of psychedelics in totally blind subjects, the only published case report of a congenitally blind user, and the most comprehensive review of blindness and altered stat…

Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are altered states sometimes accompanied by reports of veridical perception—accurate information seemingly obtained from a vantage point outside the body and ostensibly without conventional sensory input. While case collections and early laboratory studies suggest this possibility, replication under conventional laboratory protocols has been challenging. This articl…

This short version presents the core argument of a dual-aspect account of experience and consciousness centered on systemic relevance. The central claim is that experience is the inner appearance of systemic relevance, and that consciousness is not merely integrated information but integrated relevance. Information marks difference; salience marks attentional prominence; function describes the ro…

Turns out we’re not all watching the same version of the world unfold, just continuously updating our own personal “simulation.”

The Hemispheric Disparity Theory conceptualizes one facet of consciousness, defined as the “conscious-mind” experience. Rather than a unified agent, conscious experience arises from the dynamic interplay between a left hemisphere specialized in order and abstraction through dynamic temporal modeling, and a right hemisphere specialized in contextual integration, coherence, and model updating throu…

The phenomenon of “pure awareness”, central to many contemplative traditions, has recently attracted scientific interest for its relevance to the study of consciousness. In this paper, we investigate pure awareness through the algorithmic agent model, a computational framework with roots in algorithmic information theory. This framework proposes that agents build compressive models of the world, …

_Journal of Consciousness Studies_. forthcomingWe explore and argue for the view that intelligence beyond a certain threshold is negatively correlated with consciousness, so that the more intelligent a system is, the less likely it is to be conscious. “Intelligence is the enemy of consciousness,” as we put it. This view entails that superintelligent AI models are likely to be zombies. After prese…

This paper proposes a new approach to consciousness by grounding it in the phenomenology of the human experience of time. Rather than treating experience as an additional property layered onto information-processing, the phenomenology of the human experience of time (PHET) reconceptualizes consciousness as the dynamic integration of past experience, present circumstances, and anticipated futures …

Problems of consciousness are broadly classified into two: easy and hard. The subjective nature of experience is considered the hard problem of consciousness. Although several theories of consciousness have been proposed, none seem to satisfactorily answer the hard problem. To address this, here I explore the molecular process underlying experience and the biological purpose it serves the entity.…

Recently, the Berggruen Institutes’ Noema Magazine published a duo of articles on the ‘Hard Problem’ of Consciousness that are misleading, or misinformed, on a number of fronts. I point out these problems, and show how a more veridical account of this understanding has developed over the last 158 years, and might better inform the reader. The issues with these articles, that I raise, are not limi…

This paper rejects the mainstream reductionist neuroscientific paradigm that explains human consciousness solely through the quantitative complexity of neural networks. Instead, it proposes a holistic framework termed "Mental Relativity." We argue that billions of independent electrochemical signals from disparate brain lobes superimpose upon the screen of awareness, creating a global information…