I left out a few items, mainly of my own, on my last post either because they didn’t quite fit into the flow of the post or they didn’t occur to me at the time.

Consciousness Defined

Northoff defines consciousness as alignment between the world and the brain. This is brought about because the world is structured by temporal dynamics and the brain imitates these temporal dynamics in the actions of its neural circuits. Northoff starts with the world because the brain exists in the world.

What’s strikes me about this definition, when stripped of its technical jargon, is how much it agrees with what I call the commonsense definition of consciousness: the phenomenal states of being aware of the world usually accompanied by an ability to take actions in it. This certainly is what we do not have if we are in deep sleep, under anesthesia, in a coma, have fainted, or are suffering from a brain trauma, such as concussion. The questions asked of people in such states are: are they awake or are they conscious? This agrees with how Searle defines consciousness.

Consciousness in Other Organisms

Since consciousness is produced by the temporal dynamics of the brain mimicking those of the world, then presumably any organism with a brain that exhibits the scale free dynamics of networked neurons would have some level of consciousness.

The qualities and frequencies in which the brain aligns with the world, based on sensory capabilities, numbers of neurons, and complexity of brain structures, could differ remarkably across species n ways we may not be able to appreciate. The number of neurons, while perhaps not definitive, may be a useful proxy measure for level of consciousness. Number of neurons also maps to intelligence in some measures. While I don’t like to use the word “intelligence” as synonym for “level of consciousness”, I do think that level of consciousness mostly controls or determines intelligence in organisms with neural systems.

At any rate, in this argument, consciousness at some level likely arises with as few as a couple hundred to perhaps a thousand networked neurons. Some level of temporal dynamics (brain waves), I think, has been measured in insects.

Artificial Consciousness

If an artificial, non-biological creation could mimic the temporal dynamics of the world with its own internally generated temporal dynamics, we might be forced to conclude it is conscious. The created entity would likely require greater “sensory” access to the world possibly with actuators to enable movement than anything that exists today. One of the complaints about some of the AI models is that it can’t distinguish fact from fiction in what it is trained on. It has no contact or alignment with the world to verify what is and what isn’t.

What’s interesting about the human brain, however, is that it may have specialized circuits to tell us if what we are experiencing is real. There is a brain conditions called Capgras delusion, for example, that can make us think the people around us are not real. The anterior precuneus, a structure between the two hemispheres, seems to have some control over whether our individual reality feels real. So AI may need some kind of cross-check with itself to function better.

The question, of course, would be exactly what would be a minimal instantiation of the temporal dynamics. Would a lattice of silicon-based intelligent switches be sufficient? Or, is there something peculiar to calcium and potassium ions flowing in membranes, for example, that might require biology to be involved?

Thoughts on Time

We mostly think of time as either measured time or container time. In measured time, we are simply using some regular reoccurring event, for example, gear movement in a mechanical clock, as a standard for measuring some other event, for example the time from the start to finish of the 100 meter dash for a competitor. In container time, time moves at its pace and stuff happens in it. Container time is like older conception of space. In the Newtonian version, space isn’t anything but where matter exists. We know now matter bends space. Space is actively modified by matter.

What if time should be thought to be more active? The universe has matter but it also has the continual transformation of matter. Implicit in transformation is time. What was becomes something different through time. The world as we know has stuff (matter) but the stuff is always changing on short, long, and intermediate time scales. Time is active. It is stuff changing. Northoff calls this dynamic time and cites some of Lee Smolin to explain. The idea seems to be that the temporal dynamics has some creative role to play in how structures in the world come about. The same dynamics that build the world are used in the brain to create the structures that compose consciousness.