Cognitive Computation
May 17, 2023
Neyla Sfeir, Igor Aleksander
1 citation
Abstract Phenomenology is concerned with the first-person experience of or about some object, and is generally related to sensory experience, for example, auditory or visual. Cognitive phenomenology refers to an element of phenomenological experience that does not have a sensory character. Experiences of thought, understanding, and appreciation of meaning are less figurative than the sensory...
Philosophies
June 23, 2022
Igor Aleksander
In the period between Turing’s 1950 “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” and the current considerable public exposure to the term “artificial intelligence (AI)”, Turing’s question “Can a machine think?” has become a topic of daily debate in the media, the home, and, indeed, the pub. However, “Can a machine think?” is sliding towards a more controversial issue: “Can a machine be conscious?” Of...
CRC Press eBooks
August 20, 2019
Igor Aleksander
1 citation
This chapter discusses a fundamental postulate which relegates an artificial kind of consciousness to the working of a neural state machine. There is a legitimate attack among those who write about consciousness on the idea that there may be ‘computational’ models in the offing, as for example, advocated by Dennett. The problem with these attacks is that they are usually made on rule-based...
Consciousness and Cognition
December 2011
David Gamez, Igor Aleksander
A number of people have suggested that there is a link between information integration and consciousness, and a number of algorithms for calculating information integration have been put forward. The most recent of these is Balduzzi and Tononi's state-based Φ algorithm, which has factorial dependencies that severely limit the number of neurons that can be analyzed. To address this issue an...
Advances in experimental medicine and biology
2011
Igor Aleksander, David Gamez
In recent years a number of people have suggested that there is a close link between conscious experience and the differentiation and integration of information in certain areas of the brain. The balance between differentiation and integration is often called information integration, and a number of algorithms for measuring it have been put forward, which can be used to make predictions about...
International Journal of Machine Consciousness
June 1, 2010
Igor Aleksander
Sloman's critique of almost all the work that goes under the heading of Machine Consciousness (MC) stems from his assertion that one cannot base a constructive science on a confused concept. This brief comment is an attempt to look at some bits of Sloman's own contribution, whether he overcomes this difficulty or whether the difficulty may be addressed through the very use of a constructive...
International Journal of Machine Consciousness
May 19, 2009
Igor Aleksander
5 citations
This paper critically tracks the impact of the development of the machine consciousness paradigm from the incredulity of the 1990s to the structuring of the turn of this century, and the consolidation of the present time which forms the basis for guessing what might happen in the future. The underlying question is how this development may have changed our understanding of consciousness and...
Progress in Brain Research
2008
Igor Aleksander, Helen Morton
In this chapter we present a computational architecture intended to add clarity to the concept of consciousness. We briefly review some of the motivations of work done in this area in various institutes around the world and looks closely at our own work which specifically includes phenomenology, the sense of a self in a perceptual world. This breaks consciousness into five axioms: presence,...
Neural Networks
November 2007
Igor Aleksander, Helen Morton
A model of conscious mechanisms called Axiomatic Consciousness Theory (ACT) is used to develop a neuroarchitectural model of visual phenomenology. The result is an extension of concepts in neural systems towards phenomenal intentionality: the lack of which is a common starting point for critiques of AI. Here the argument is developed at four interacting grain levels of description and the...
International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence
September 1, 2006
Igor Aleksander, Helen Morton
In this paper we argue that phenomenology needs to be supported by explicit mechanisms if one is to have computational models of consciousness. Computational work in this area is reviewed and a set of axioms that help to decompose being conscious into manageable concepts is evoked. This leads to a kernel architecture and a digital implementation which is shown to work in examples of visual...
Progress in Brain Research
2005
Igor Aleksander
The work from several laboratories on the modeling of consciousness is reviewed. This ranges, on one hand, from purely functional models where behavior is important and leads to an attribution of consciousness to, on the other hand, material work closely derived from the information about the anatomy of the brain. At the functional end of the spectrum, applications are described specifically...