In the Age of AI: A New Paradigm, A New Consciousness

Abstract

Abstract In this Discussion Note I argue that to understand the problem of consciousness, both as it applies to humans and may apply to machines, is a matter of paradigm lenses. I challenge the positing of human superiority with regard to intelligence and consciousness. I begin by reviewing Thomas Kuhn’s notion of paradigm shifts, including what he regarded as the limitations of scientific progress, which he saw as in a state of long-term flux, with no absolute knowledge possible as long as science moved from paradigm to paradigm. I also consider Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle with respect to viewpoint, and I recall the debate over classical and quantum models of understanding and how such a discussion reflects on the debate over consciousness. I review the recent controversy over Information Integration Theory (IIT), criticized as a poor scientific theory, but defended as philosophical theory, and why this distinction is important. I close by considering panpsychism as a model for understanding emergence and how consciousness could emerge from the continuous progress of machine thinking on the way to artificial general intelligence (AGI), as understood as technological singularity.