[ExI] Fwd: New article: EM Field Theory of Consciousness

William Flynn Wallace foozler83 at gmail.com
Fri Jun 17 14:20:35 UTC 2022


I can't say that I understand your reply fully.  All behavior, intelligent
or not, comes from your unconscious mind.  Maybe I don't understand
epiphenomenal as well as I think I do.

I do understand this:  : a secondary mental phenomenon that is caused by
and accompanies a physical phenomenon but has no causal influence itself. Like
seeing tuba notes in color.  bill w

On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 8:48 AM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 at 23:01, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> OTOH - it could be that our conscious mind is like God looking down on us
>> and observing our behavior - meaning that the conscious has no role in our
>> behavior at all - it is superfluous - epiphenomenal.  So if that is true,
>> trying to make robots conscious is a waste of time.  No advantage to it.
>> It has programs that monitor all output like our conscious mind  .   All is
>> done by our unconscious and the conscious is just an observer.  No free
>> will, but we don't need it - our unconscious (which is really conscious of
>> all inputs) does all the work.
>>
>
> If consciousness is epiphenomenal, it isn’t an optional extra. It is a
> side-effect of intelligent behaviour.
>
> bill w
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 2:13 AM Colin Hales via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>> This is to let you know of the arrival of this publication:
>>>
>>> Hales, C.G., and Ericson, M.L. (2022). Electromagnetism’s Bridge Across
>>> the Explanatory Gap: How a Neuroscience/Physics Collaboration delivers
>>> Explanation into all Theories of Consciousness. Frontiers in Human
>>> Neuroscience 16.
>>> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2022.836046/full
>>>
>>> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2022.836046/full#supplementary-material
>>>
>>>
>>> This is the full and final argument.
>>>
>>> Note that on page 9 there is a brief discussion of a new kind of chip.
>>> That is the one I am building at unimelb. AGI because it can't be anything
>>> else. Actual artificial neurons (no general-purpose computing, no software,
>>> no models, no programming). Bottom line line: put the signalling physics of
>>> the brain in in natural form, naturally interacting, naturally adapting on
>>> the chips, NOT the physics of a general purpose computer.
>>>
>>> The abstract is below. Overall:
>>> 1) all theories of consciousness are actually EM field theories.
>>> 2) bringing explanation of the 1st person perspective requires an
>>> epistemic upgrade to the standard model of particle physics.
>>>
>>> Turns out that to properly cover all the bases needed 22 pages and an 8
>>> page supplementary. Sorry about that.
>>>
>>> Interesting times.
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> Colin
>>>
>>>
>>> ==========================================
>>> A productive, informative three decades of correlates of phenomenal
>>> consciousness (P-Consciousness) have delivered valuable knowledge while
>>> simultaneously locating us in a unique and unprecedented explanatory
>>> cul-de-sac. Observational correlates are demonstrated to be intrinsically
>>> very unlikely to explain or lead to a fundamental principle underlying the
>>> strongly emergent 1st-person-perspective (1PP) invisibly stowed away inside
>>> them. That lack is now solidly evidenced in practice. To escape our
>>> explanatory impasse, this article focuses on fundamental physics (the
>>> standard model of particle physics), which brings to light a foundational
>>> argument for how the brain is an essentially electromagnetic (EM) field
>>> object from the atomic level up. That is, our multitude of correlates of
>>> P-Consciousness are actually descriptions of specific EM field behaviors
>>> that are posed (hypothesized) as “the right” correlate by a particular
>>> theory of consciousness. Because of this, our 30 years of empirical
>>> progress can be reinterpreted as, in effect, the delivery of a large body
>>> of evidence that the standard model’s EM quadrant can deliver a 1PP. That
>>> is, all theories of consciousness are, in the end, merely recipes that
>>> select a particular subset of the totality of EM field expression that is
>>> brain tissue. With a universal convergence on EM, the science of
>>> P-Consciousness becomes a collaborative effort between neuroscience and
>>> physics. The collaboration acts in pursuit of a unified explanation
>>> applicable to all theories of consciousness while remaining mindful that
>>> the process still contains no real explanation as to why or how EM fields
>>> deliver a 1PP. The apparent continued lack of explanation is, however,
>>> different: this time, the way forward is opened through its direct
>>> connection to fundamental physics. This is the first result (Part I). Part
>>> II posits, in general terms, a structural (epistemic) add-on/upgrade to the
>>> standard model that has the potential to deliver the missing route to an
>>> explanation of how subjectivity is delivered through EM fields. The revised
>>> standard model, under the neuroscience/physics collaboration, intimately
>>> integrates with the existing “correlates of-” paradigm, which acts as its
>>> source of empirical evidence. No existing theory of consciousness is lost
>>> or invalidated.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>
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> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
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