Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness
September 1, 2021
David Gamez
A systematic understanding of the relationship between intelligence and consciousness can only be achieved when we can accurately measure intelligence and consciousness. In other work, I have suggested how the measurement of consciousness can be improved by reframing the science of consciousness as a search for mathematical theories that map between physical and conscious states. This paper...
Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness
March 1, 2020
David Gamez
This paper explores some of the potential connections between natural and artificial intelligence and natural and artificial consciousness. In humans we use batteries of tests to indirectly measure intelligence. This approach breaks down when we try to apply it to radically different animals and to the many varieties of artificial intelligence. To address this issue people are starting to...
September 1, 2018
David Gamez
Consciousness is extremely important to us. What would life be worth without the smells, colours and sounds that fill our waking conscious experience? Coma patients who are unlikely to regain consciousness are allowed to die. Fictional unconscious zombies are shot with impunity. Within the Christian tradition the conscious soul is
Human and Machine Consciousness
March 7, 2018
David Gamez
Chapter 3 tackles some of the ‘hard’ problems with consciousness. First, it is impossible to imagine the relationship between consciousness and the invisible physical world. Second, we find it difficult to imagine the connection between conscious experiences of brain activity and other conscious experiences. Third, there are brute regularities between consciousness and the physical world that...
Human and Machine Consciousness
March 7, 2018
David Gamez
Chapter 6 discusses physical theories of consciousness, which link consciousness to patterns in materials (for example, neuron firing patterns). With physical theories the materials in which the patterns occur are critical - if the same patterns occur in different materials, they are not claimed to be linked to consciousness. Physical theories of consciousness are similar to scientific theories...
Human and Machine Consciousness
March 7, 2018
David Gamez
Some people believe that consciousness is linked to the execution of computations. They claim that some computations are linked to consciousness regardless of whether they are executing in a brain or a digital computer. Chapter 8 argues that computations cannot be linked to consciousness by themselves because computing is a subjective use that we make of the world. Computation theories of...
Human and Machine Consciousness
March 7, 2018
David Gamez
Chapter 9 explains how theories of consciousness can be experimentally tested. This can only be done on systems that we assume are conscious, such as normally functioning adult human brains. We can also use theories of consciousness to make deductions about the consciousness of brain damaged people, animals and robots. These deductions cannot be verified because we cannot measure the...
Human and Machine Consciousness
March 7, 2018
David Gamez
When we have developed a reliable theory of consciousness, we will be able to use it to modify and enhance our consciousness. For example, we could change the shape of our conscious body or increase our level of consciousness. Chapter 10 explains how we can use a theory of consciousness to identify the physical state that is linked to a desired conscious state. If we could realize this physical...
Human and Machine Consciousness
March 7, 2018
David Gamez
The fifth chapter explains how we can develop mathematical theories of the relationship between consciousness and the physical world. Scientists have carried out pilot studies that have looked for correlations between consciousness and brain activity. We are now starting to create compact mathematical theories that can map between physical and conscious states. It might be possible to use...
March 7, 2018
David Gamez
Human and Machine Consciousness presents a new foundation for the scientific study of consciousness. It sets out a bold interpretation of consciousness that neutralizes the philosophical problems and explains how we can make scientific predictions about the consciousness of animals, brain-damaged patients and machines.
Human and Machine Consciousness
March 7, 2018
David Gamez
In daily life we treat colour, sound and smell as objective properties of the world. Over the last three hundred years science has developed a series of interpretations of the world that have stripped objects of their sensory properties. Apples used to be red and tasty; now physical apples are colourless collections of jigging atoms, probability distributions of wave-particles. The physical...
Human and Machine Consciousness
March 7, 2018
David Gamez
The eleventh chapter distinguishes between four types of machine consciousness and outlines how a reliable theory of consciousness could be used to create conscious machines and to make believable deductions about the consciousness of artificial systems. Brain implants and consciousness uploading are investigated as forms of machine consciousness, and the chapter discusses whether conscious...
Human and Machine Consciousness
March 7, 2018
David Gamez
A number of people have claimed that information patterns are linked to consciousness regardless of whether they occur in a brain, a computer or a pile of sand. The seventh chapter shows that this approach fails because information is not a property of the physical world and any given information pattern can be extracted from both the conscious and unconscious brain. Information theories of...
Human and Machine Consciousness
March 7, 2018
David Gamez
Scientists measure consciousness through first-person reports, which raises problems about the reliability of first-person reports, the possibility of non-reportable consciousness and the causal closure of the physical world. The fourth chapter addresses these issues by making assumptions that explain how consciousness can be measured. First, we need to identify the systems that we believe are...
Open Book Publishers
March 6, 2018
David Gamez
Human and Machine Consciousness presents a new foundation for the scientific study of consciousness. It sets out a bold interpretation of consciousness that neutralizes the philosophical problems and explains how we can make scientific predictions about the consciousness of animals, brain-damaged patients and machines.
Open Book Publishers
March 6, 2018
David Gamez
Consciousness is largely a mystery to man: we know next to nothing about its relationship to the physical world. In order to fathom and understand it, there are some obstacles which need to be overcome, that is, the metaphysical theories of consciousness, and the ‘hard’ problem of consciousness. Some of these obstacles cannot even be overcome. This book will endeavour to neutralize the...
Animal Sentience
2018
David Gamez
Woodruff makes two arguments to support his claim that ray-finned fish are conscious: (1) Fish neuroanatomy has similarities with the structures in the human brain that support consciousness. (2) The complexity and flexibility of fish behaviour suggest that they are conscious. This commentary will argue that neither the neuroanatomical nor the behavioural argument can provide conclusive...
Frontiers in Psychology
July 10, 2014
David Gamez
Scientists studying consciousness are attempting to identify correlations between measurements of consciousness and the physical world. Consciousness can only be measured through first-person reports, which raises problems about the accuracy of first-person reports, the possibility of non-reportable consciousness and the causal closure of the physical world. Many of these issues could be...
International Journal of Machine Consciousness
December 1, 2012
David Gamez
26 citations
Research is starting to identify correlations between consciousness and some of the spatiotemporal patterns in the physical brain. For theoretical and practical reasons, the results of experiments on the correlates of consciousness have ambiguous interpretations. At any point in time a number of hypotheses co-exist about and the correlates of consciousness in the brain, which are all compatible...
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...
Consciousness and Cognition
March 2010
David Gamez
This paper describes how Tononi's information integration theory of consciousness was used to make detailed predictions about the distribution of phenomenal states in a spiking neural network. This network had approximately 18,000 neurons and 700,000 connections and it used models of emotion and imagination to control the eye movements of a virtual robot and avoid 'negative' stimuli. The first...
International Journal of Machine Consciousness
December 1, 2009
David Gamez
25 citations
The question about the potential for consciousness of artificial systems has often been addressed using thought experiments, which are often problematic in the philosophy of mind. A more promising approach is to use real experiments to gather data about the correlates of consciousness in humans, and develop this data into theories that make predictions about human and artificial consciousness....
Consciousness and Cognition
September 1, 2008
David Gamez
This paper is a review of the work that has been carried out on machine consciousness. A clear overview of this diverse field is achieved by breaking machine consciousness down into four different areas, which are used to understand its aims, discuss its relationship with other subjects and outline the work that has been carried out so far. The criticisms that have been made against machine...