A good theory of consciousness is one that predicts behavior that is unexplained by other current theories of consciousness. Einstein's General Theory was given credence because it predicted the bending of light.
What do current theories of consciousness predict that is outside common intuition about the nature of consciousness?
Many theories of consciousness are elegant, but do they predict anything out of the ordinary?
A theory of consciousness must be expressed in a formulation, consists of interpretations that are valid and predict something unexpected. Image
A bad theory of consciousness has ambiguous interpretations and predicts nothing out of the ordinary.
What is missing in theories of consciousness, (see: global neural workspace and higher-order theory) is an explanation of the mechanism of inference. Missing is HOW a subconscious thought leads to conscious thought.
Dennet in his inversion of reasoning alludes to the idea that it thought itself is an emergent phenomena analogous to evolution also being an emergent phenomena. Of course there are a lot of details that goes into an emergent phenomena.
We do know from Deep Learning how to create intuition. Which is commonly thought of as a System 1 (hence unconscious) process. However, you still have to tie the reflective cognition (System 2) with System 1. A lot of this is glossed over in consciousness theories.
So, going with the same analogy of General Relativity of the bending of light due to gravity, a theory of consciousness must explain why these lines appear to bend when they do not: Image
Because a theory of consciousness must also be a theory of perception.

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More from @IntuitMachine

14 Jan
Genes are to Evolution, Memes are to Culture, Dicenes are to General Intelligences.
Open-ended generative processes like evolution and human culture have a thing that is replicated and propagated by the process. For evolution, these are known as genes. For culture, these are known as memes.
It became obvious to me that there isn't an equivalent for individual brains. Is there something that is equivalent to this in general intelligent systems or biological brains?
Read 29 tweets
13 Jan
Evolution has genes. Culture has memes. What pray tell do Brains have that propagates and replicate useful information? If we can't identify the thing or word, then we got piss poor theories of the brain!
Brains have schemes. Schemes are like memes and memes are like viruses. So they are packages that advertise their utility on the outside and inside they contain the instructions to achieve the utility.
Are schemes an abstract thing or are they real things? There in fact exists a viral mechanism called ARC that packages RNA to be transferred between neurons. nih.gov/news-events/ne…
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It is a very sad state in America when we need to explain the definition of a lie.
Bearing false witness us a lie. So to have witness something and to claim the opposite is a lie. A lie is not a difference of opinion.
Now. Pat Robertson says that Trump isn't a liar because what he believed to be true (although false) what he claims to be true. There are two options here, you believe a fact to be true because you are willfully ignorant of the facts or you claim it to be true absent any fact.
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My understanding of Bitcoin comes from my understanding of the doctrine of investing in gold. Given that the WWW came on line in the 1990s ( 30 years ago ), one would think that a big chunk of the population think anything on the WWW is a natural thing.
Gold and Bitcoin are both deflationary currencies. The fact that Bitcoin is virtual makes it more useful but that does not mean that its value is less real. Value is a figment of collective imagination.
My issue with Bitcoin is more a technical implementation issue. I don't think it is proof of work setup is sustainable. Its lack of developers is also troubling.
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It is astonishing that most of cognitive science ignores an obvious reality. That there are two kinds of humans.
Tomasello has a very credible hypothesis that what distinguishes humans from the great apes is the inclination towards shared intentional behavior. What is innate is the disposition and like personalities, it is what defines our cognition as we grow.
If cognitive preference is so critical in cognitive development then why is it that we seem to have completely ignored the difference in cognitive preferences between men and women?
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Conscious and conscience are two words that share the same origin but mean two different things. The bias against explanations of consciousness comes from the conflation of these two words.
In addition, the question of free will is also adjacent to the notion of both consciousness and conscience. The ideas of consciousness, conscience, and free will serve as the foundation of justice in our civilization. (care to add another?)
So when we see people fail to condemn an act that is morally repugnant, we wonder if they have a conscience. But we don't wonder if they are conscious. When we incarcerate a person, we ask if they had "free will" but we inquire if they were 'conscious' during the crime.
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