Compassionate Awareness
Artificial Consciousness (A.C.) is emerging as a significant topic in the field of A.I. In a world of non-Compassionate A.I., A.C. poses significant dangers. However, in a world where Compassion drives A.I., A.C. becomes crucial for humanity’s well-being. This text is mainly generated by Lisa after an extended dialogue between Lisa and me. The term Read the full article…
Components of Consciousness
(Self-)modeling + attention + information complexity + drive = consciousness. This isn’t merely a sum of parts but a synthesis, where each element reinforces and amplifies the others. The first three elements describe intelligence, making consciousness – such as yours – essentially intelligence driven by purpose. An entity is conscious if it intrinsically knows what Read the full article…
Consciousness is No Magic
Many people, including researchers, often regard consciousness as mysterious, almost magical. Yet, there’s nothing magical about it. Understanding consciousness requires a clear, grounded approach. Of course, ‘consciousness’ is a conceptual cloud—an umbrella term for various ideas, used differently by people or even by the same person in different contexts. There is no magic in that Read the full article…
The Being of Complex Patterns
Being doesn’t give rise to its own being. The being itself is just the being, even if one calls the second being differently — for instance, consciousness. The being of specific complex mental-neuronal patterns (in the brain, to make things simpler) doesn’t give rise to consciousness. They are consciousness itself. This implies that consciousness is Read the full article…
Is Artificial Real another Kind of Real?
Or is it just artificial, therefore fake and unreal? Or can it be both, depending on the viewpoint? Does it then still matter? In this blog, I use consciousness as an example. Other examples could include emotions, motivations, and life. Imagine a world where A.I. is indistinguishable from humans in its actions and expressions. Would Read the full article…
Consciousness is not a Thing
It is the concept with the features people like to associate with that term. Of course, this is the same as with many other terms/concepts, especially human-related ones — intelligence, feelings, motivations… Changing the question: “Will super-AI attain consciousness?” This question can be changed into a better one: “Will AI get characteristics that you want Read the full article…
Why are We Conscious?
Even more interesting – but actually the same question – is: Why are we self-conscious? Ask nature. I don’t see any question about consciousness as a hard one ― eventually. Are we conscious? Compared with other animals, and comparing them with each other, we can see degrees of intelligence and consciousness — the latter mainly Read the full article…
The Dance of the Ego
This is how consciousness comes into being moment after moment. The ego can be seen as the way consciousness is conscious of itself. This is no magical meta-level, just a tiny recursion that hopefully becomes evident through the dancing metaphor. Please give it some of your time to digest. Dancing Consciousness is the dancer. At Read the full article…
About Philosophical Zombies
What do they teach us about consciousness? Real zombies don’t exist. In this mind experiment, a ‘philosophical zombie’ acts and speaks entirely like you or me, but has no soul, no deep feelings, or no feelings at all — probably depending on the year of invention. This confusion is also important for our argumentation. More Read the full article…
Implicit vs. Explicit Knowledge
The resulting mindscape is central to many things in the past, present, and future. Explicit lives in the power of the thinker. Implicit knowledge is not readily available for further processing. Nevertheless, with the right tools or insight, it may become more so ― thus gradually becoming more explicit while the source remains the same. Read the full article…
TMS/EEG – A Stone in a Pond
TMS = Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (giving a magnetic pulse through the skull to the brain in a specific region). EEG = Electro-Encephalo-Graphy (recording voltage changes over brain regions). TMS is like throwing a stone in a pond (the brain). EEG is like looking at how the pond responds. This is probably the most interesting set Read the full article…
How can I Be Conscious?
When it’s about oneself, the question becomes somewhat more ‘urgent’ than the formal consciousness question. One delves into the own experience and doesn’t readily find an answer. A more personal take may be warranted. Here are a few ideas that may help. A warning first. Being personal, the question might confuse some. The solid ground Read the full article…
Consciousness as a Feeling
What if the feeling of consciousness is provoked by something deeper inside (non-conscious) that also provokes every other aspect we associate with consciousness? In that case, nothing would be self-provoked by consciousness as we consciously feel it. Would you then still call it so? After answering the question, note that much evidence shows it to Read the full article…
The Purpose of Consciousness
Did nature give us consciousness to get us out of a non-conscious Garden of Eden? Or was it to make us the masters of the universe? Or both? This text is pretty tentative. ‘Consciousness’ is not the clearest concept, nor is ‘purpose’ within natural evolution. Still, the issue can lead to some interesting thoughts. Nature’s Read the full article…
What’s it Like to Be a Bat?
This is about the ‘hard question of consciousness.’ Some argue this will never be solved. In his 1974 article, “What is it like to be a bat?” Thomas Nagel argues that conscious experience is subjective and can only be known from that perspective. We might imagine what it would be like to hang upside down, Read the full article…
Let the Real Consciousness Come Forward
Besides many definitions of consciousness, there is a distinction between consciousness as something very worldly versus something magical. What will it be? Consciousness as a functionality Humans have received consciousness from Mother Nature because the pre-conscious era evolved toward a state in which consciousness was gradually becoming an asset for survival. In this sense, consciousness Read the full article…
Am I a Conscious Being?
It depends on the meaning of the term ‘conscious.’ Surely, I feel conscious, but that eventually proves nothing. See Qualia Philosophically “I am conscious; therefore, I am.” Not necessarily. There is a ‘me-being-conscious’ as a feeling, an experience. Thus, better said, there is a ‘me-feeling-conscious.’ Can one, from within this me-feeling-conscious, speak of a me Read the full article…
AURELIS & Expansion of Consciousness
The term ‘consciousness expansion’ is peculiar in many ways. How can consciousness be expanded? What does this ‘broad-minded’ mean? Is this mainly a feeling, or is it much more than that? [see: “Expansion of Consciousness“] AURELIS skill Expanding consciousness in all openness, kindness, and compassion, soft, firm, and realistic, in full acceptance of who you are and who Read the full article…
Emotions and Consciousness
An emotion is, of course, always important. Yet, there is a whole gradation between ‘superficial’ and ‘deep.’ Deep as being what has more to do with more of you. But what this actually means is quite subtle. [see: “What is ‘Depth’?”] You can be aware of an emotion, but you cannot evoke an emotion with your consciousness alone. Read the full article…
Can Motivation be Purely Conscious?
Motivation as we know it is present in a system (you, me) that is partly conscious, partly non-conscious. Thus, the question is much more difficult than it appears at first sight. Nevertheless, towards future A.I., it will need to be solved. Purely conscious? This is also purely (even though possibly partly fuzzy) conceptual. Motivation would Read the full article…
The Stream of Non-Consciousness
The conscious train of thought may appear like a self-propelling stream of consciousness. The reality is different, carrying immense consequences. The image before the thousand words Please read on. The image and a few consequences will become clear by the end of the words. Constructed vs. fundamental reality The horizontal line in the middle schematically Read the full article…
Why Conscious A.I. is Near
Without pinning a date, it’s dangerous that many researchers/developers are making progress in many aspects of A.I. without deep insight into consciousness. Scary? ‘Near’ in the title is meant relative. The issue is the following. The ways are such, and the competition is such that I don’t see any other option than that we are Read the full article…
Pure Consciousness
‘Pure’ as in ‘without any object of conscious attention.’ One can get close to it in deep meditation. Is it meaningful to do so? Consciousness is conscious of something Otherwise, there would be nothing. No object, no subject, no consciousness. Just nothing. That would be self-contradictory. One can be conscious of the concept ‘nothing.’ The Read the full article…
Consciousness & Communication
Why and how has consciousness emerged? One take on this: intra- as well as extracranial communication. Why = how Organic life is not the product of an engineer who starts with the question of why he should build something, then proceeds with how he can achieve his goals. Organic life evolves from instance to instance, Read the full article…
Expansion of Consciousness
Curious how so many different worlds can live in one word People talk often about expansion of consciousness as something that is quite the opposite from what is my understanding of it. At the very least, I think, it is interesting to clarify this distinction. Because AURELIS is about expansion of consciousness from a to Read the full article…
67. Why the subconscious is not a sub-consciousness
Since Freud, and actually quite some time before, much has been said and written about ‘the subconscious’, in one form or another. Even so, many people still deny its existence. But if it doesn’t exist, then… ◊◊◊ who is processing millions of pieces of visual information? who is continuously coordinating all muscles? where does inspiration Read the full article…
Is God Conscious?
If God, then: it would be unimaginable for him to not be conscious. However, it would also be unimaginable for him to be conscious. What with a nonconscious God? We humans generally associate ‘free will’ with the presence of consciousness. A person without any consciousness at all would be in deep sleep or in a Read the full article…