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Looks great; bookmarked. Was expecting to see another paper that talks about resonance without any mention Stephen Grossberg's seminal work, but great to see th

Looks great; bookmarked. Was expecting to see another paper that talks about resonance without any mention Stephen Grossberg's seminal work, but great to see that you do cite him! :) And his 2017 paper at that, which I imagine will become one of his most celebrated. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0893608016301800 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089360801... I'll add that his work is not just about how resonance enables adaptive learning, but how resonance enables adaptive learning via conscious mechanisms. Grossberg was not only the earliest to suggest how resonance might play a role in consciousness, but also the only one to offer a mechanistically precise theory of consciousness that also has great explanatory power. (I am contrasting this with other consciousness theories like IIT and global workspace) More here: https://resonantbrain.substack.com/p/understanding-consciousness-is-more https://resonantbrain.substack.com/p/understanding-conscious...

dr_dshiv 4y ago
I really liked your diagram in the blog post. Very clear. (And, I preordered your book!) We recently proposed an evolutionary theory of consciousness — published by Darwin College at Cambridge. You might find it interesting, as well. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/enigmas/enigma-of-mind-a-theory-of-evolution-and-conscious-experience/42D438434AF8DA4E0862A3B12C748451 https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/enigmas/enigma-of-mind-...
- ChaitanyaSai 4y ago
  Thank you! (our book is already out; hope you didn't order the paperback that comes out early next year) Look forward to reading the chapter and the book, after I finish your article :)
cmehdy 4y ago
Thanks for your article, it is very interesting. I don't necessarily see the difference between the very "slow" statistical feedback loop of cars and the equivalent in consciousness: what if a brain the size of a galaxy existed - such that signals across it took thousands of years. Therefore changes would appear anything but "real-time" to an observer on a vastly different timescale. Would that then mean the entity cannot be considered conscious? In which case, when would we arbitrarily drawing the line - at a relative distance from ourselves? Likewise on small scales, if a self-correcting FPGA was rewiring itself at a scale and speed we cannot perceive, would it not quality for consciousness simply because of our egos? It's also worth noting that a possible alteration could be made to the definition you make of consciousness: > Consciousness is the constellation of past experiences experiencing the present, assimilating it to act and prepare for future opportunities. What we commonly believe to be conscious beings don't prepare for the future, they prepare for trajectories towards imagined futures that are maximizing internal criteria. We have no evidence that conscious beings have any capability to hold the entire causality of reality within their grasp before the dice are thrown, therefore the past really is the entirety. Some of it informs our classification of "past" things (clear memories of childhood for example), and all of it contributes to the shape of internal models we use to model things, predict & estimate outcomes, and pick maximization/minimization actions.

dr_dshiv 4y ago

I really liked your diagram in the blog post. Very clear. (And, I preordered your book!) We recently proposed an evolutionary theory of consciousness — published by Darwin College at Cambridge. You might find it interesting, as well. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/enigmas/enigma-of-mind-a-theory-of-evolution-and-conscious-experience/42D438434AF8DA4E0862A3B12C748451 https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/enigmas/enigma-of-mind-...

ChaitanyaSai 4y ago
Thank you! (our book is already out; hope you didn't order the paperback that comes out early next year) Look forward to reading the chapter and the book, after I finish your article :)

cmehdy 4y ago

Thanks for your article, it is very interesting. I don't necessarily see the difference between the very "slow" statistical feedback loop of cars and the equivalent in consciousness: what if a brain the size of a galaxy existed - such that signals across it took thousands of years. Therefore changes would appear anything but "real-time" to an observer on a vastly different timescale. Would that then mean the entity cannot be considered conscious? In which case, when would we arbitrarily drawing the line - at a relative distance from ourselves? Likewise on small scales, if a self-correcting FPGA was rewiring itself at a scale and speed we cannot perceive, would it not quality for consciousness simply because of our egos? It's also worth noting that a possible alteration could be made to the definition you make of consciousness: > Consciousness is the constellation of past experiences experiencing the present, assimilating it to act and prepare for future opportunities. What we commonly believe to be conscious beings don't prepare for the future, they prepare for trajectories towards imagined futures that are maximizing internal criteria. We have no evidence that conscious beings have any capability to hold the entire causality of reality within their grasp before the dice are thrown, therefore the past really is the entirety. Some of it informs our classification of "past" things (clear memories of childhood for example), and all of it contributes to the shape of internal models we use to model things, predict & estimate outcomes, and pick maximization/minimization actions.