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Koch (or perhaps just the reporter quoting him) contradicts himself. Even in his own definition of consciousness a machine architecture merely needs a feedback
by nohat 7y ago
Koch (or perhaps just the reporter quoting him) contradicts himself. Even in his own definition of consciousness a machine architecture merely needs a feedback loop to be conscious, something hardly unheard of in computer programs. Now arguably that definition isn't terrible because human consciousness does seem like a supervisor -- something that synthesizes all the subprocess work and makes sure it has a coherent story.
- skosch 7y agoDon't worry: Tononi (and, by extension, Koch) have thought about IIT much more than the author of this article. You are correctly pointing out the conflict between computationalism ("consciousness is what certain computations feels like from the inside") and physicalism ("consciousness is what certain computations feel like from the inside, when they take place on physical substrates, perhaps requiring the involvement of quantum decoherence"). One of the best primers on the current state of academic hypotheses on these topics is the whitepaper "Principia Qualia" by the good folks at the Qualia Research Institute [0]. [0] https://opentheory.net/PrincipiaQualia.pdf https://opentheory.net/PrincipiaQualia.pdf