Automated Compression Theory
Routledge eBooks June 28, 2023 DOI: 10.4324/9781003411581-5 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Proposes that conscious experience from the first-person perspective draws on automatically accessed compressed information chunks, and argues this can explain the appearances behind hard-problem intuitions. The author contends that engineering constraints require any well-built cognitive system to use automation and compression, and cites empirical evidence for these processes at multiple scales in the human brain. |
Abstract
This chapter introduces the Automated Compression Theory (ACT). ACT holds that when we consider our conscious experience from the first-person perspective, we automatically access compressed information chunks, and this process explains in easy terms the appearances underwriting our hard problem intuitions. ACT is supported by general engineering constraints: any well-built cognitive system will have to possess the kinds of efficiencies offered by automation and compression. The chapter then argues that, in principle, ACT can explain the problematic appearances of consciousness, and it closes with a range of empirical evidence for the ubiquity of automation and compression at a number of scales in the human brain.