Artificial consciousness

1
Artificial consciousness

• How could anything material have conscious
  states? (Fodor, 1991)

2

• Menatlists nothing really exists outside the
  mind
• Materialists there is only matter
• Epiphenomentalism Consciousness is an illusion
• Panpsychism Everything is conscious

3
Dualism

• Dualism does not work (Blackmore, 200313)
• Body Mind
• Mind - Body
• The ghost in the machine (Ryle, 1949)
• Minds are simply what brains do (Minsky, 1986)
• Physical events in the brain give rise to
  experiences of the world
• How do physical processes in the brain give rise
  to subjective experience
• What is it like to be a bat? (Nagel, 1974)

4
Modularity (Fodor, 1983)

• e.g. prosopagnosia
• Senses
• detection
• Input systems
• deliver representations to
• Central systems
• e.g. decision making, planning intelligent
  behaviour

5
Mental modules

• Domain specific
• Information encapsulation
• Mandatory
• Fast
• Output to central systems which integrate
• Species-wide
• Can breakdown in isolation
• Fixed neural architecture
• i.e. innately prespecified
• Ideal for Cyberpsychology

6
e.g. vision (Marr and Nishihara, 1978)

• Image
• ?
• Primal Sketch
• ?
• 2 ½ D sketch
• ? ?
• 3D representation ? Recognition

7
Attention

• Central processes domain-general, unencapsulated
• Binding of functionally specific modules
• Synchronised neural activity at 40 Hz Occilations
• working awareness is the function of
  consciousness (Crick and Koch, 1990)
• Consciousness/Awareness/Attention
• The focus of attention enters consciousness.
  Outside the focus of attention remains
  preconscious (Velmans, 2000)
• Attention is not sufficient for consciousness and
  is not the same as consciousness (Damasio, 1999)
• No one knows what attention is (Pashler, 1998)

8

• Consciousness is a biological feature of human
  brains. It is caused by neurobiological processes
  and is much a part of the natural world order as
  any other biological features such as
  photosynthesis, digestion or mitosis (Searle,
  1992)

9
Young and Block (1996)3 types

• First type of conscious state
• Access consciousness
• Refers to cognitive states
• Beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, regrets,
  expectations,
• propositional attitudes
• And memories.

10
Second type of consciousness

• Refers to phenomenal states
• experience colour, feel jealousy, enjoy the
  warmth of the afternoon sun. Qualitative feel
  qualia.
• Available through introspection of experience
• Attribute mental states to people to explain
  their behaviour

11
Third type of consciousness

• Refers to monitoring self and sense of self
• Monitor what one is doing
• Think about ones self
• Access and monitoring Conscious are cognitive,
  not clear the phenomenal consciousness is (Young
  and Block, 1996)

12
Jackson (1986)

• 1) Mary is in a black and white room and learns
  everything there is to know, all the physical
  facts in the world.
• 2) Mary is released and sees a ripe tomato in
  good light and comes to know what it is like to
  see red.
• 3) Despite knowing all the physical facts, Mary
  has learnt something new qualia are not
  physical.

13
Aydede and Guzeldere (2000)

• Knowing that vs. knowing how
• 1) Mary does learn something new and factual
• 2) But not a new fact
• 3) Rather a new way of relating to an old fact
• Build AI systems with a sensory/cognitive/introsp
  ective architectureand robots need not be spared
  phenomenal consciousness (p.275)

14
Unconscious people

• People lack phenomenal consciousness
• Blindsight
• People lack access consciousness
• Memory Amnesia
• Attributing mental states Theory of Mind in
  Autism folk psychology module (Baron-Cohen,
  2000)
• People lack monitoring consciousness
• Anosognosia

15

• As if conscious
• Chinese room (Seale, 1980)
• Consciousness in cyberspace
• Girls as boys, bots (Turkle, 1995)
• Language is a crucial factor in the evolution of
  consciousness
• No proof of consciousness in pre-verbal children
  (nor animals)
• (MacPhail, 1998)