here's a link to the actual paper: https://journals.lww.com/cogbehavneurol/Fulltext/9900/Consciousness_as_a_Memory_System.19.aspx

"[O]our theory of consciousness rejects the idea that consciousness
initially evolved in order to allow us to make sense of the world and
act accordingly, and then, at some later point, episodic memory
developed to store such conscious representations. Our theory is that
consciousness developed with the evolution of episodic memory simply—and
owerfully—to enable the phenomena of remembering"

""In a nutshell, our theory is that consciousness developed as a memory system that is used by our unconscious brain to help us flexibly and creatively imagine the future and plan accordingly,""

That doesn't come close to an explanation.

consciousness is everything

That's what your unconscious brain with their flexibility and creativity want you to think.

Well I can stop eating ice cream or just not eat it so have to disagree that day to day activities are all unconscious.

The ego is at the center of AI Consciousness.

My best interpretation of this article in a nutshell is:

"Consciousness is the ability to remember your own internal and subjective processes, creating subjective awareness"

But that begs the question, what is remembering? Is memory itself remembering other memories?

That would be my definition of self awareness, not consciousness.

TBH I see more complex arguments from random people on this sub, maybe you guys should be writing these articles instead.

Hot take but I think consciousness will never be explained with physics "from this world". It probably lies in a higher plane that we can neither observe nor manipulate because we are inherently limited, not by our intelligence or technology but by our universe itself.

Which means I believe making synthetic consciousness is impossible and our AIs will never be conscious like we are, but nevertheless will be able to solve mathematical and technological problems much harder than humans can.

But I also believe there is a chance we may stumble into something which may let consciousness "slip in" from the higher plane like a one-directional passage (we still don't understand what is on the other side and can't interact with it but some of the contents leak to this side via holes we poke on purpose).

It does, its actually very close to the angle that all there is is a daily reboot of a memory when you wake up, there is no continuous consciousness, you 'die' every time you go to sleep...

My computer has log files. It remembers its own internal processes very well.

This is a very good link. I learned a lot. Thank you 🙏🏻

Some religions actually take this view. Not exactly sure, but a Muslim friend told me this is the view in Sunni Islam. I couldn’t verify, though.

What would be your definition of consciousness?

That seems correct. Conscious thought can overrule unconscious thought or instincts.

My understanding of it is the "observer" itself. The thing you call "me" that's reading this right now.

Sentience confirmed, someone call Blake Lemoine.

True, but only when prompted by a command or programming. It cannot so it by its own volition. Yet

Of course, the observer must be doing the observing. No dispute there. But I was wondering how would you define consciousness as opposed to awareness.

Awareness would be just the representation of the data without the observer.

For instance, you can open a page of a .pdf document, in that moment the computer is "aware" of that data, but it can't actually "read" the document by itself.

Another good example would be dreaming, you can be "aware" (have memories and neurons firing) without being conscious to experience what's going on.

Just because we are not able yet to understand a thing, it does'nt mean it's magic.

It's hubris to think consciousness is something special, when it's just an evolutionary result of the need to mentally visualize yourself and a prey, that just moved out of sight behind a rock, to be able to continue your hunt.

This has been mainstream for years. Really not sure how this differs from the million other books which basically say the same thing.

Consciousness is just the result of having to hunt better..? That is the worst take on consciousness I’ve ever seen lol

So only predators can be conscious?

And consciousness to you is “knowing someone is behind a rock”?

I mean, it just seems you have a COMPLETELY different idea of consciousness then I or most people have.

And yes, to the people actively studying it, it’s a bit stupefying and “magical”. Because we cannot explain even the HOW using current science. Let alone the WHY…

Obviously it is dumbed down for the scope of a Reddit comment. I leave it to you to inform you further about this theory attributing consciousness to the need of a mental picture of "self" to understand that the leaf you were going to eat did not vanish from existence just because it got covered by an obstacle while you were moving towards it.

I disagree that that is an explanation for consciousness at all tho…

Consciousness is not “self-image”. I mean, self-image is NOT a big mystery lol.

The “mystery” of consciousness is the experience of being aware, present, of being “there”. Is an experience we all have, but very few can put into words. Consciousness is the DEEPEST feeling we have.

Having a self-image is… very mechanical, and really does not explain the experience of “being” at all.

Like… I don’t think self-image is even necessary to be conscious at all. I don’t think a fish has self-image, but they are conscious.

>Like… I don’t think self-image is even necessary to be conscious at all. I don’t think a fish has self-image, but they are conscious.

It sure has. It is necessary to picture yourself in a surrounding with obstacles. Simply to solve the problem of moving yourself in the direction of food.

Anyway. If you are able to learn anything from history, than it is that humans attributed anything they didn't understand to some kind of magic. Many many times. And the cases where it was actually magic are 0.

Thunder is not the wrath of Thor. And thinking "this time it has to be magic" is not clever.

Who is talking about magic here?

Just because something is not explainable by science doesn’t mean it’s magic…

Could you elaborate on how picturing yourself surrounded with objects generates consciousness? My view on consciousness has nothing to do with spatial awareness lol

>Who is talking about magic here?

The initial comment is.

And my view on consciousness is, that it is nothing more than the byproduct of the need to develop spatial awareness. Like shadow is a byproduct of light hitting an object. "lol"

So you are pretty much alone, specially among actual specialists and people who actively study consciousness.

Spatial awareness may be a component of sapience. But consciousness has nothing to do with sapience. Being self-aware may very well be a simple biological mechanism that emerged from evolutionary needs. Just like all brain processes. So it’s quite remarkable that almost no scientists studying consciousness nowadays believe it is “generated” in the brain. So all in all, that consciousness is not either emergent nor a characteristic OF the brain.

The only people who think this like you are strict materialists who never studied consciousness, and go on the outdated model that consciousness = mind.

Also, I think you misunderstood the first comment a lot man… Just because we might never be able to access the “higher-level physics” doesn’t mean it’s magic.

I for one believe we have limitations as humans, namely logic and our senses. We are in many ways bound by rationality and logic, which likely arose from evolution and not any metaphysical truth. And our senses (even our more abstract senses, such as our imagination) are equally limited by biology and our evolution.

Bound by evolution in the sense that they evolved to help us survive. Not to find “truth”. So they are at best imperfect for that end, and at worst totally useless.

So yes, it’s possible the problem of consciousness is “unbreakable” for humans. We might need some “higher” being to help us, such as AI (and yes I know this contradicts the original comment a bit, never said I 100% agree with them).

LaMDA engineer enters the chat

This is exactly the god of the gaps thing.

"Hubris" to think it is something special..? Maybe it would be hubris if we were taking credit for it or something, but obviously consciousness is "something special", kind of by definition. If it doesn't count as special, then I cannot imagine what does.

Then it's a very, very, very, very, very quirky "by-product of a need for spatial awareness" indeed.

Have you ever seen Conway's game of life? It's full of very quirky byproducts of very simple rules.

Consciousness isn't comparable nor analogous to anything I can think of

I could write a network that takes the log files as an input and runs continuously in the background if that would help?

Interesting that you draw a distinction between consciousness and awareness.

You could. But wouldn’t that still be programming?

Is thinking something other than executing a program?

Hard to tell. I meant in the sense that the computer can decide for itself. Not that you program it to act or respond in a certain way. Sorry that my English is poor. I hope I made myself understood now. Thanks for the answer and patience.

So how does an animal make decisions for itself?

Agreed. If a theory of consciousness doesn't explain subjectivity, then it's essentially worthless to me. I even prefer Tegmark's extremely vague, consciousness is just the strange texture information processing, or whatever he says. In fact I much prefer that, because at least it addresses subjectivity.

I’m not a biologist so the exact mechanism is unknown to me. But it is generally accepted that animals can make decisions.