Helping Darwin: How to think about evolution of consciousness (Biosciences ta...Aaron Sloman
ABSTRACT
Many of Darwin's opponents, and some of those who accepted the theory of evolution as regards physical forms, objected to the claim that human mental functions, and
consciousness in particular, could be products of evolution. There were several reasons for this opposition, including unanswered questions as to how physical mechanisms could produce mental states and processes an old, and still surviving, philosophical problem.
A new answer is now available. Evolution could have produced the "mysterious" aspects of consciousness if, like engineers developing computing systems in the last six or seven decades, evolution encountered and "solved" increasingly complex problems of representation and control (including self-monitoring and self-control) by using systems with increasingly abstract mechanisms based on virtual machines, including most
recently self-monitoring virtual machines.
These capabilities are, like many capabilities of computer-based systems, implemented in non-physical virtual machinery which, in turn, are implemented in lower level physical mechanisms.
This would require far more complex virtual machines than human engineers have so far created. Noone knows whether the biological virtual machines could have been
implemented in the discrete-switch technology used in current computers.
These ideas were not available to Darwin and his contemporaries: most of the concepts, and the technology, involved in creation and use of sophisticated virtual machines were developed only in the last half century, as a by-product of a large number of design decisions by hardware and software engineers solving different problems.
Why the "hard" problem of consciousness is easy and the "easy" problem hard....Aaron Sloman
The "hard" problem of concsiousness can be shown to be a non-problem because it is formulated using a seriously defective concept (the concept of "phenomenal consciousness" defined so as to rule out cognitive functionality and causal powers).
So the hard problem is an example of a well known type of philosophical problem that needs to be dissolved (fairly easily) rather than solved. For other examples, and a brief introduction to conceptual analysis, see http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/varieties-of-atheism.html
In contrast, the so-called "easy" problem requires detailed analysis of very complex and subtle features of perceptual processes, introspective processes and other mental processes, sometimes labelled "access consciousness": these have cognitive functions, but their complexity (especially the way details change as the environment changes or the perceiver moves) is considerable and very hard to characterise.
"Access consciousness" is complex also because it takes many different forms, since what individuals are conscious of and what uses being conscious of things can be put to, can vary hugely, from simple life forms, through many other animals and human infants, to sophisticated adult humans,
Finding ways of modelling these aspects of consciousness, and explaining how they arise out of physical mechanisms, requires major advances in the science of information processing systems -- including computer science and neuroscience.
There are empirical facts about introspection that have generated theories of consciousness but some of the empirical facts go unnoticed by philosophers.
The notion of a virtual machine is introduced briefly and illustrated using Conway's "Game of life" and other examples of virtual machinery that explain how contents of consciousness can have causal powers and can have intentionality (be able to refer to other things).
The beginnings of a research program are presented, showing how more examples can be collected and how notions of virtual machinery may need to be developed to cope with all the phenomena.
Distinguishes Humean (statistics-based) notions of causation and Kantian (deterministic, structure-based) notions of causation, arguing that intelligent robots and animals need both, but each requires a combination of competences, and various kinds of partial competence of both kinds are possible.
Digital Research: preserving your research dataJames Baker
Notes from a talk I gave at the 'History libraries & research open day' at Senate House Library, University of London, 18 March 2014 organised by the Committee of London Research Libraries in History.
My notes available at https://gist.github.com/drjwbaker/9596448
The Epistemology of Living Organizations ― Theoretical Foundations and Practi...William Hall
Here I try to answer some questions from my corporate career, where I have concluded that organizations are complex adaptive living systems. The answers are the result of more than 10 years of research trying to combine my understanding of evolutionary biology and corporate experience. Five topics are addressed:
o Karl Popper’s evolutionary epistemology
o Defining life - autopoiesis
o Human biology
- Adaptation
- Genetic vs cultural heredity (knowledge transfer)
- Origins of culture and social organization
o Theoretical foundations of organizational knowledge
o Putting theory into practice
Creation and Evolution through the Logos book 1 chap 3Miguel Cano
Given the current confusion of values, it would be convenient to return to nature to find possible grounds on which to build a system of common and universal values that can harmonize the various conflicting and contradictory views today.
This book analyzes several classic controversies such as the conflict between materialism and idealism, the debate about the origin and evolution of life and the universe, the controversy between determinism and freedom, and the problem between the individual and the totality.
As conclusion, a number of general principles of nature are enumerated, which are very useful to harmonize the different scientific, philosophical and religious traditions.
Epistemology, technology and knowledge growth - Meetup session 4William Hall
This is the 4th of 23 presentations in a series introducing and outlining my hypertext book project, "Application Holy Wars or a New Reformation - A Fugue on the Theory of Knowledge. The project explores the interactions of technology and cognition in the extraordinary evolutionary history of the human species. Here I get into the Subject or meat of the book, building on Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemology and Thomas Kuhn's scientific revolutions.
Your ability to generate strategic insights can be enhanced by understanding and following the principles of ACCRETION - the process whereby stellar systems are formed
This presentation was written for LAI 531 Science Curricula: Current Approaches
Special Session for the Science and the Public EdM Program at SUNY Buffalo. It is written as a presentation to be given to a school board regarding the so-called controversy over evolution.
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Helping Darwin: How to think about evolution of consciousness (Biosciences ta...Aaron Sloman
ABSTRACT
Many of Darwin's opponents, and some of those who accepted the theory of evolution as regards physical forms, objected to the claim that human mental functions, and
consciousness in particular, could be products of evolution. There were several reasons for this opposition, including unanswered questions as to how physical mechanisms could produce mental states and processes an old, and still surviving, philosophical problem.
A new answer is now available. Evolution could have produced the "mysterious" aspects of consciousness if, like engineers developing computing systems in the last six or seven decades, evolution encountered and "solved" increasingly complex problems of representation and control (including self-monitoring and self-control) by using systems with increasingly abstract mechanisms based on virtual machines, including most
recently self-monitoring virtual machines.
These capabilities are, like many capabilities of computer-based systems, implemented in non-physical virtual machinery which, in turn, are implemented in lower level physical mechanisms.
This would require far more complex virtual machines than human engineers have so far created. Noone knows whether the biological virtual machines could have been
implemented in the discrete-switch technology used in current computers.
These ideas were not available to Darwin and his contemporaries: most of the concepts, and the technology, involved in creation and use of sophisticated virtual machines were developed only in the last half century, as a by-product of a large number of design decisions by hardware and software engineers solving different problems.
Why the "hard" problem of consciousness is easy and the "easy" problem hard....Aaron Sloman
The "hard" problem of concsiousness can be shown to be a non-problem because it is formulated using a seriously defective concept (the concept of "phenomenal consciousness" defined so as to rule out cognitive functionality and causal powers).
So the hard problem is an example of a well known type of philosophical problem that needs to be dissolved (fairly easily) rather than solved. For other examples, and a brief introduction to conceptual analysis, see http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/varieties-of-atheism.html
In contrast, the so-called "easy" problem requires detailed analysis of very complex and subtle features of perceptual processes, introspective processes and other mental processes, sometimes labelled "access consciousness": these have cognitive functions, but their complexity (especially the way details change as the environment changes or the perceiver moves) is considerable and very hard to characterise.
"Access consciousness" is complex also because it takes many different forms, since what individuals are conscious of and what uses being conscious of things can be put to, can vary hugely, from simple life forms, through many other animals and human infants, to sophisticated adult humans,
Finding ways of modelling these aspects of consciousness, and explaining how they arise out of physical mechanisms, requires major advances in the science of information processing systems -- including computer science and neuroscience.
There are empirical facts about introspection that have generated theories of consciousness but some of the empirical facts go unnoticed by philosophers.
The notion of a virtual machine is introduced briefly and illustrated using Conway's "Game of life" and other examples of virtual machinery that explain how contents of consciousness can have causal powers and can have intentionality (be able to refer to other things).
The beginnings of a research program are presented, showing how more examples can be collected and how notions of virtual machinery may need to be developed to cope with all the phenomena.
Distinguishes Humean (statistics-based) notions of causation and Kantian (deterministic, structure-based) notions of causation, arguing that intelligent robots and animals need both, but each requires a combination of competences, and various kinds of partial competence of both kinds are possible.
Digital Research: preserving your research dataJames Baker
Notes from a talk I gave at the 'History libraries & research open day' at Senate House Library, University of London, 18 March 2014 organised by the Committee of London Research Libraries in History.
My notes available at https://gist.github.com/drjwbaker/9596448
The Epistemology of Living Organizations ― Theoretical Foundations and Practi...William Hall
Here I try to answer some questions from my corporate career, where I have concluded that organizations are complex adaptive living systems. The answers are the result of more than 10 years of research trying to combine my understanding of evolutionary biology and corporate experience. Five topics are addressed:
o Karl Popper’s evolutionary epistemology
o Defining life - autopoiesis
o Human biology
- Adaptation
- Genetic vs cultural heredity (knowledge transfer)
- Origins of culture and social organization
o Theoretical foundations of organizational knowledge
o Putting theory into practice
Creation and Evolution through the Logos book 1 chap 3Miguel Cano
Given the current confusion of values, it would be convenient to return to nature to find possible grounds on which to build a system of common and universal values that can harmonize the various conflicting and contradictory views today.
This book analyzes several classic controversies such as the conflict between materialism and idealism, the debate about the origin and evolution of life and the universe, the controversy between determinism and freedom, and the problem between the individual and the totality.
As conclusion, a number of general principles of nature are enumerated, which are very useful to harmonize the different scientific, philosophical and religious traditions.
Epistemology, technology and knowledge growth - Meetup session 4William Hall
This is the 4th of 23 presentations in a series introducing and outlining my hypertext book project, "Application Holy Wars or a New Reformation - A Fugue on the Theory of Knowledge. The project explores the interactions of technology and cognition in the extraordinary evolutionary history of the human species. Here I get into the Subject or meat of the book, building on Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemology and Thomas Kuhn's scientific revolutions.
Your ability to generate strategic insights can be enhanced by understanding and following the principles of ACCRETION - the process whereby stellar systems are formed
This presentation was written for LAI 531 Science Curricula: Current Approaches
Special Session for the Science and the Public EdM Program at SUNY Buffalo. It is written as a presentation to be given to a school board regarding the so-called controversy over evolution.
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June 3, 2024 Anti-Semitism Letter Sent to MIT President Kornbluth and MIT Cor...Levi Shapiro
Letter from the Congress of the United States regarding Anti-Semitism sent June 3rd to MIT President Sally Kornbluth, MIT Corp Chair, Mark Gorenberg
Dear Dr. Kornbluth and Mr. Gorenberg,
The US House of Representatives is deeply concerned by ongoing and pervasive acts of antisemitic
harassment and intimidation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Failing to act decisively to ensure a safe learning environment for all students would be a grave dereliction of your responsibilities as President of MIT and Chair of the MIT Corporation.
This Congress will not stand idly by and allow an environment hostile to Jewish students to persist. The House believes that your institution is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and the inability or
unwillingness to rectify this violation through action requires accountability.
Postsecondary education is a unique opportunity for students to learn and have their ideas and beliefs challenged. However, universities receiving hundreds of millions of federal funds annually have denied
students that opportunity and have been hijacked to become venues for the promotion of terrorism, antisemitic harassment and intimidation, unlawful encampments, and in some cases, assaults and riots.
The House of Representatives will not countenance the use of federal funds to indoctrinate students into hateful, antisemitic, anti-American supporters of terrorism. Investigations into campus antisemitism by the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on Ways and Means have been expanded into a Congress-wide probe across all relevant jurisdictions to address this national crisis. The undersigned Committees will conduct oversight into the use of federal funds at MIT and its learning environment under authorities granted to each Committee.
• The Committee on Education and the Workforce has been investigating your institution since December 7, 2023. The Committee has broad jurisdiction over postsecondary education, including its compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, campus safety concerns over disruptions to the learning environment, and the awarding of federal student aid under the Higher Education Act.
• The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating the sources of funding and other support flowing to groups espousing pro-Hamas propaganda and engaged in antisemitic harassment and intimidation of students. The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is the principal oversight committee of the US House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X.
• The Committee on Ways and Means has been investigating several universities since November 15, 2023, when the Committee held a hearing entitled From Ivory Towers to Dark Corners: Investigating the Nexus Between Antisemitism, Tax-Exempt Universities, and Terror Financing. The Committee followed the hearing with letters to those institutions on January 10, 202
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
Synthetic Fiber Construction in lab .pptxPavel ( NSTU)
Synthetic fiber production is a fascinating and complex field that blends chemistry, engineering, and environmental science. By understanding these aspects, students can gain a comprehensive view of synthetic fiber production, its impact on society and the environment, and the potential for future innovations. Synthetic fibers play a crucial role in modern society, impacting various aspects of daily life, industry, and the environment. ynthetic fibers are integral to modern life, offering a range of benefits from cost-effectiveness and versatility to innovative applications and performance characteristics. While they pose environmental challenges, ongoing research and development aim to create more sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives. Understanding the importance of synthetic fibers helps in appreciating their role in the economy, industry, and daily life, while also emphasizing the need for sustainable practices and innovation.
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
Honest Reviews of Tim Han LMA Course Program.pptxtimhan337
Personal development courses are widely available today, with each one promising life-changing outcomes. Tim Han’s Life Mastery Achievers (LMA) Course has drawn a lot of interest. In addition to offering my frank assessment of Success Insider’s LMA Course, this piece examines the course’s effects via a variety of Tim Han LMA course reviews and Success Insider comments.
Biological screening of herbal drugs: Introduction and Need for
Phyto-Pharmacological Screening, New Strategies for evaluating
Natural Products, In vitro evaluation techniques for Antioxidants, Antimicrobial and Anticancer drugs. In vivo evaluation techniques
for Anti-inflammatory, Antiulcer, Anticancer, Wound healing, Antidiabetic, Hepatoprotective, Cardio protective, Diuretics and
Antifertility, Toxicity studies as per OECD guidelines
The French Revolution, which began in 1789, was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France. It marked the decline of absolute monarchies, the rise of secular and democratic republics, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. This revolutionary period is crucial in understanding the transition from feudalism to modernity in Europe.
For more information, visit-www.vavaclasses.com
How to Make a Field invisible in Odoo 17Celine George
It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
1. UOP PHL 458 Week 1 DQ 1 NEW
Check this A+ tutorial guideline at
http://www.homeworkrank.com/phl-458-uop/phl-458-
week-1-dq-1-updated
For more classes visit
http://www.homeworkrank.com
Neurophysiologist research suggests that human thinking has
two distinct phases which are complementary in making
decisions or solving problems. The first, or production phase, is
associated with our creative thinking- seeing the familiar in a
novel way, generating a variety of ideas, and a willingness to
take imaginative risks; the second, or judgment phase, kicks in
our critical thinking, as the mind goes to work evaluating,
distinguishing fact and evidence from sense impression, and
running the tests of logic to apply what has been produced
(Ruggiero, 2009, pp. 7-8). [Chapter 1: “The Brain & Mind at
Work”]
Both phases of thinking can be discerned in almost any
invention that marks modern life. Chester Carlson’s invention
of Xerography (the Xerox Machine) in 1938 has had as much
impact as any invention we could name. Do some research on
his invention. A good article is found on the Great Idea Finder
website
[www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/xerography.htm], or
listen to the NPR program “Talk of the Nation, Science-Friday”
(August 66, 2007), hosted by Mira Plato, who interviews David
Owen- author of Copies in Seconds: Chester Carlson & the Birth
of the Xerox Machine
2. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?
storyId=3832375]. Another website that gives a helpful
timeline is offered by the company that finally developed
Carlson’s innovations:
http://www.xerox.com/innovation/chester-carlson-
xerography/enus.html.
In a Post of 200-250 words, respond to the following questions:
Describe the production and judgment phases that you discern
in Carlson’s invention.
What obstacles or hindrances did Carlson encounter as he
creatively and critically worked on his new idea?
Citing a recent problem you have solved (or issue you tackled),
briefly describe these two phases of thinking in your problem-
solving.
Reference
Ruggiero, V. R. (2009). The art of thinking: a guide to critical
and creative thought (9th ed.). New York, NY: Longman
Pearson, Publishers.
![UOP PHL 458 Week 1 DQ 1 NEW
Check this A+ tutorial guideline at
http://www.homeworkrank.com/phl-458-uop/phl-458-
week-1-dq-1-updated
For more classes visit
http://www.homeworkrank.com
Neurophysiologist research suggests that human thinking has
two distinct phases which are complementary in making
decisions or solving problems. The first, or production phase, is
associated with our creative thinking- seeing the familiar in a
novel way, generating a variety of ideas, and a willingness to
take imaginative risks; the second, or judgment phase, kicks in
our critical thinking, as the mind goes to work evaluating,
distinguishing fact and evidence from sense impression, and
running the tests of logic to apply what has been produced
(Ruggiero, 2009, pp. 7-8). [Chapter 1: “The Brain & Mind at
Work”]
Both phases of thinking can be discerned in almost any
invention that marks modern life. Chester Carlson’s invention
of Xerography (the Xerox Machine) in 1938 has had as much
impact as any invention we could name. Do some research on
his invention. A good article is found on the Great Idea Finder
website
[www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/xerography.htm], or
listen to the NPR program “Talk of the Nation, Science-Friday”
(August 66, 2007), hosted by Mira Plato, who interviews David
Owen- author of Copies in Seconds: Chester Carlson & the Birth
of the Xerox Machine](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/uopphl458week1dq1new-171211064702/85/Uop-phl-458-week-1-dq-1-new-1-320.jpg)
![[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?
storyId=3832375]. Another website that gives a helpful
timeline is offered by the company that finally developed
Carlson’s innovations:
http://www.xerox.com/innovation/chester-carlson-
xerography/enus.html.
In a Post of 200-250 words, respond to the following questions:
Describe the production and judgment phases that you discern
in Carlson’s invention.
What obstacles or hindrances did Carlson encounter as he
creatively and critically worked on his new idea?
Citing a recent problem you have solved (or issue you tackled),
briefly describe these two phases of thinking in your problem-
solving.
Reference
Ruggiero, V. R. (2009). The art of thinking: a guide to critical
and creative thought (9th ed.). New York, NY: Longman
Pearson, Publishers.](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)