Consciousness in higher animals, with its 100-millisecond time constant, is a simplified version of more complex cognitive systems like wound healing and immune function, which emerged from information crosstalk between cognitive modules. This stripped-down nature suggests it should be possible to build a fast, single-workspace conscious machine mimicking the human global workspace. Tied to a backbrain AI for hyperrapid pattern responses, such a machine would exhibit elementary emotions. A designer might instead use high-speed electronics to create multiple-workspace systems less prone to inattentional blindness. The ultimate utility of such machines remains unclear, explored here through asymptotic limit theorems of information and control theories.
Evolution has selected for inherently unstable biological systems—such as blood pressure, immune responses, and gene expression—that can react swiftly to changing threats or opportunities, but these systems require strict regulation to avoid fatal consequences. Consciousness similarly demands high rates of metabolic free energy to both operate and regulate its underlying machinery, with the stream of consciousness and its boundaries being continually reconstructed in response to dynamic circumstances. The authors develop necessary conditions models using the Data Rate Theorem, which links control and information theories for inherently unstable systems. The synergy between conscious action and its regulation explains the ten-fold higher metabolic energy consumption in human neural tissue and implies a culturally modulated connection between sleep disorders and certain psychopathologies.
Human consciousness may suffer progressive, staged dysfunctions analogous to cancer, caused by damaging external information that writes itself onto mind and body, especially during critical developmental periods. This can lead to failures in large-scale brain connectivity or damage the ability of goal contexts to contain conscious dynamics. The primary intervention is population-level limitation of exposure to triggering factors—a matter of social justice determined by cultural trajectory, group power relations, and economic structure. Individual intervention may only trigger or extend remission by reestablishing evolved control strategies, which remain largely unexplored.
Consciousness in higher animals operates with a 100-millisecond time constant, making it a simplified version of more complex cognitive systems found in processes like wound healing or immune function. These complex systems arose through evolutionary exaptation of information crosstalk between cognitive modules. Because consciousness is stripped-down, building a fast, single-workspace conscious machine that mimics the human neuronal global workspace is feasible. Tied to a backbrain AI that learns hyperrapid pattern responses, such a machine would be elementary and emotional. A more advanced design could use high-speed electronics to create multiple-workspace systems less prone to inattentional blindness. The ultimate utility of such machines remains unclear.