Why a little bit of causal structure is necessary... even for functionalists by Larissa Albantakis
By LARISSA ALBANTAKIS • Dec. 30, 2021 @ 21:40 GMT

One of the easiest ways of testing a theory of consciousness is to apply it to a room full of people — 3 awake adults, for example. If the theory cannot identify (at least) three consciousnesses there is a problem. Yet, almost no proposal to date has the theoretical tools to approach this problem without presupposing brains as the seats of experience (IIT being a notable exception, see also Fekete et al. (2016)). Crucially, causal analysis is the only way to address this individuation problem as I will argue by means of a thought experiment inspired by Searle’s Chinese Room Argument, which I titled “The Greek Cave”. The reason is that identifying conscious individuals in general requires intervening upon the system under study. The implication is that no theory of consciousness can do entirely without assessing causal structure. Any functionalist account that completely lacks reference to causal structure is inadequate, because the same (complex) input-output function can always be distributed across different numbers of consciousnesses.



Keywords: #Consciousness #Mathematical_Models_of_Consciousness #Albantakis


Collapse and the closure of the physical by Kobi Kremnitzer
By JOSH HOFFMAN • Dec. 30, 2021 @ 21:36 GMT

In this talk I will describe recent joint work with Johannes Kleiner. I will give a precise definition of the closure of the physical and then look at the implication to physics if the (current) physical is not closed: quantum collapse theories. I will discuss the implications of this to scientific theories of consciousness.



Keywords: #Consciousness #Mathematical_Models_of_Consciousness #Kremnitzer #Closure_Of_The_Physical #Quantum_Collapse_Theories


A no-go theorem for the closure of the physical by Johannes Kleiner
By JOSH HOFFMAN • Dec. 30, 2021 @ 21:32 GMT

We analyze the implications of the closure of the physical for experiments in the scientific study of consciousness when all the details are considered, especially how measurement results relate to physical events. It turns out that the closure of the physical implies that no experiment can distinguish between two theories of consciousness that obey this assumption. Therefore, the closure of the physical is incompatible with scientific practice. This conclusion points to a fundamental flaw in the paradigm underlying most of the experiments conducted to date.



Keywords: #Consciousness #Mathematical_Models_of_Consciousness #Kleiner #Closure_Of_The_Physical


No Substitute for Functionalism by Natesh Ganesh
By JOSH HOFFMAN • Dec. 30, 2021 @ 21:26 GMT

In this talk, the author will expand on the model of falsification proposed in 'Falsification & Consciousness' by Kleiner & Hoel, allowing us to identify two different types of 'variation' — Type-1 and 2. We will show that only variations of Type-2 lead to the falsification results in the original paper. Motivated by examples from neural networks, finite state automata and Turing machines, we will prove that substitutions based on Type-2 variations do not exist for a very broad class of functionalist theories, rendering them immune to the substitution argument. We will briefly discuss implications for both the substitution argument and functionalist theories of consciousness.



Keywords: #Consciousness #Mathematical_Models_of_Consciousness #Ganesh #Falsification #Neural_Netowrks #Finite_State_Automata #Turing_Machine


A vector model of how consciousness as integrated information makes a causal difference by Ignacio Cea
By JOSH HOFFMAN • Dec. 30, 2021 @ 21:22 GMT

In this talk, we present a vector model of how consciousness, as depicted by Integrated Information Theory (IIT), can exert genuine causal powers on its physical substrate. IIT identifies consciousness with an irreducible structure of causal powers that a system of mechanisms in its current state specifies. So, IIT asserts that consciousness is “supremely causal” (Tononi 2012, p. 309). Moreover, IIT’s first axiom is that consciousness exists, and one of its key theoretical assumptions is that to exist is to have causal power. Therefore, consciousness must have causal power, on pain of internal incoherence. However, there is a tension between consciousness being causally powerful and the fact that, in IIT’s framework, the behavior of any conscious system seems fully determined by its non-phenomenal properties.To resolve this, we argue that IIT’s interventionist framework should be complemented with a “causal powers” metaphysical view of causation, and propose a mathematically formulated method to translate IIT’s irreducible causal structure (=consciousness) to a vector model where phenomenal powers interact and determine what state of activation the system is more disposed to be in the immediate future. In this way, we could advance our understanding of how consciousness as integrated information makes a causal difference.



Keywords: #Consciousness #Mathematical_Models_of_Consciousness #Cea #Integrated_Information_Theory

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Keywords: #IAF #Information_As_Fuel #Schmiedmayer #Quantum #Quantum_Thermodynamics #Quantum_Systems #Thermodynamics ...

Quantum Machine Learning by Jens Eisert
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Keywords: #IAF #Information_As_Fuel #Eisert #Quantum_Technology #Quantum ...

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