Harry Chesley wrote:
On 11/14/2008 9:27 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote:
I completed the first draft of a technical paper on consciousness the
other day. It is intended for the AGI-09 conference, and it can be
found at:
http://susaro.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/draft_consciousness_rpwl.pdf
Good paper.
A related question: How do you explain the fact that we sometimes are
aware of qualia and sometimes not? You can perform the same actions
paying attention or "on auto pilot." In one case, qualia "manifest,"
while in the other they do not. Why is that?
I actually *really* like this question: I was trying to compose an
answer to it while lying in bed this morning.
This is what I started referring to (in a longer version of the paper)
as a "Consciousness Holiday".
In fact, if start unpacking the idea of what we mean by conscious
experience, we start to realize that it inly really exists when we look
at it. It is not even logically possible to think about consciousness -
any form of it, including *memories* of the consciousness that I had a
few minutes ago, when I was driving along the road and talking to my
companion without bothering to look at several large towns that we drove
through - without applying the analysis mechanism to the consciousness
episode.
So when I don't remember anything about those towns, from a few minutes
ago on my road trip, is it because (a) the attentional mechanism did not
bother to lay down any episodic memory traces, so I cannot bring back
the memories and analyze them, or (b) that I was actually not
experiencing any qualia during that time when I was on autopilot?
I believe that the answer is (a), and that IF I can stopped at any point
during the observation period and thought about the experience I just
had, I would be able to appreciate the last few seconds of subjective
experience.
The real reply to your question goes much much deeper, and it is
fascinating because we need to get a handle on creatures that probably
do not do any reflective, language-based philosophical thinking (like
guinea pigs and crocodiles). I want to say more, but will have to set
it down in a longer form.
Does this seem to make sense so far, though?
Richard Loosemore
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agi
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