Take a look at the Attention Schema Theory (AST) of consciousness by Michael Graziano. It is a mechanistic account of consciousness that avoids the rabbit holes of ‘hard problems’ and qualia.
The fundamental insight it makes is that there is a distinction between attention and awareness: that attention corresponds to neural firing patterns, and that awareness is a schema (model) of that attention. Awareness then feeds back into attention — moving it or sharpening it.
Think of it as a high-level programming SDK for the brain.
AST also helps explain why awareness evolved: it is a prediction engine for brains, both our own and others. And once competition began, an arms race of prediction begins that ultimately ends with a non-determinative ‘free-will’ that defies prediction.
If AST is correct, then consciousness is a simulation. It also means we have a roadmap to machine consciousness. Graziano has written articles that ask for engineers to try this model, but from what I can tell, no one has really tried (by intention). However, model-based reinforcement learning is pretty close. Especially the ones that are beginning to use action-prediction.
It won’t be long before we have paranoid androids.
I don't think it's difficult at all to come up with a mechanistic/reductionist model for attention (or any related functioning: FEF, saccades, salience, etc).
But pure awareness is entirely different. You can't get around qualia. Because in essence, qualia is pointing to the idea that "you are." You have an experience of being. Saying here is an explanation of how the simulation arises just pushes the question back. Now I'm wondering, "to whom is the simulation presented?"
You can say, "to no one—it's all a trick." But who is being tricked. Ultimately I am. The idea that my perceptions arise mechanistically presents no problem to me. The idea that the original background intelligence itself is a simulation seems obviously false. So obvious it precedes a logical argument because it is the intelligence from which logics derive their authority. Crudely speaking, it makes 1+1=2 true.
I think a lot of really smart people look right past the most basic reality that they must exist prior to their perceptions for perceptions, logic, or a simulation to exist at all. If you can say that awareness is secondary and arises from these mechanistic explanations, who is left to evaluate the validity of this proposition?
It's way simpler than we're all making it. People just have to sit alone with the knowledge that they are.
> You can say, "to no one—it's all a trick." But who is being tricked.
A "clever" turn of phrase, nothing more. Illusions don't require a subject. An illusion is a perception that entails a false conclusion if taken at face value, the false conclusion in this case being that subjective experience exists.
> If you can say that awareness is secondary and arises from these mechanistic explanations, who is left to evaluate the validity of this proposition?
Don't you see how this question assumes the conclusion? A mechanistic process can validate propositions, obviously.
The fundamental insight it makes is that there is a distinction between attention and awareness: that attention corresponds to neural firing patterns, and that awareness is a schema (model) of that attention. Awareness then feeds back into attention — moving it or sharpening it.
Think of it as a high-level programming SDK for the brain.
AST also helps explain why awareness evolved: it is a prediction engine for brains, both our own and others. And once competition began, an arms race of prediction begins that ultimately ends with a non-determinative ‘free-will’ that defies prediction.
If AST is correct, then consciousness is a simulation. It also means we have a roadmap to machine consciousness. Graziano has written articles that ask for engineers to try this model, but from what I can tell, no one has really tried (by intention). However, model-based reinforcement learning is pretty close. Especially the ones that are beginning to use action-prediction.
It won’t be long before we have paranoid androids.