Physics of Life Reviews
March 1, 2025
Kathinka Evers, Michele Farisco, R Chatila et al.
7 citations
The pursuit of artificial consciousness requires conceptual clarity to navigate its theoretical and empirical challenges. This paper introduces a composite, multilevel, and multidimensional model of consciousness as a heuristic framework to guide research in this field. Consciousness is treated as a complex phenomenon, with distinct constituents and dimensions that can be operationalized for...
Neural networks : the official journal of the International Neural Network Society
December 1, 2024
Michele Farisco, Kathinka Evers, Jean-Pierre Changeux
We here analyse the question of developing artificial consciousness from an evolutionary perspective, taking the evolution of the human brain and its relation with consciousness as a reference model or as a benchmark. This kind of analysis reveals several structural and functional features of the human brain that appear to be key for reaching human-like complex conscious experience and that...
arXiv (Cornell University)
April 18, 2024
Michele Farisco, Kathinka Evers, Jean-Pierre Changeux
We here analyse the question of developing artificial consciousness from an evolutionary perspective, taking the evolution of the human brain and its relation with consciousness as a reference model. This kind of analysis reveals several structural and functional features of the human brain that appear to be key for reaching human-like complex conscious experience and that current research on...
Consciousness and Cognition
February 27, 2024
Kathinka Evers, Michele Farisco, Cyriel M A Pennartz
How deep is the current diversity in the panoply of theories to define consciousness, and to what extent do these theories share common denominators? Here we first examine to what extent different theories are commensurable (or comparable) along particular dimensions. We posit logical (and, when applicable, empirical) commensurability as a necessary condition for identifying common denominators...
BMC Medical Ethics
March 27, 2022
Michele Farisco, Cyriel M A Pennartz, Jitka Annen et al.
Abstract Background Assessing consciousness in other subjects, particularly in non-verbal and behaviourally disabled subjects (e.g., patients with disorders of consciousness), is notoriously challenging but increasingly urgent. The high rate of misdiagnosis among disorders of consciousness raises the need for new perspectives in order to inspire new technical and clinical approaches. Main body...
Physics of Life Reviews
July 1, 2020
Georg Northoff, Soren Wainio-Theberge, Kathinka Evers
Neuroscience has made considerable progress in unraveling the neural correlates of mental phenomena like self, consciousness, and perception. However, the "common currency" shared between neuronal and mental activity, brain and mind, remains yet unclear. In this article, we propose that the dynamics of time and space provides a "common currency" that connects neuronal and mental features. Time...
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
2019
Cyriel M A Pennartz, Michele Farisco, Kathinka Evers
In today's society, it becomes increasingly important to assess which non-human and non-verbal beings possess consciousness. This review article aims to delineate criteria for consciousness especially in animals, while also taking into account intelligent artifacts. First, we circumscribe what we mean with "consciousness" and describe key features of subjective experience: qualitative richness,...
Frontiers in Psychology
2018
Michele Farisco, Jeanette H Kotaleski, Kathinka Evers
Modeling and simulations have gained a leading position in contemporary attempts to describe, explain, and quantitatively predict the human brain's operations. Computer models are highly sophisticated tools developed to achieve an integrated knowledge of the brain with the aim of overcoming the actual fragmentation resulting from different neuroscientific approaches. In this paper we...