Consciousness
The "Hard Problem" of Consciousness is to explain how a purely
material mind, or more importantly a
computer mind, can have feelings and emotions.
The answer is very simple. The
computational neuroscience model of a mind that is widely promoted today cannot experience human or animal emotions. Similarly, the large language models (LLMs) of today's artificial intelligence (AI) systems do not have feelings, despite chats telling us that they do.
Consciousness can be defined in information terms as a property of an entity (usually a living thing, but we can also include artificially conscious machines or computers) that reacts to the information (and particularly to changes in the information) in its environment.
In the context of information philosophy, we can define this as
information consciousness.
Thus an animal in a deep sleep is not conscious because it ignores changes in its environment. And robots may be conscious in our sense. Even the lowliest control system using negative feedback (a thermostat, for example) is in a minimal sense conscious of (aware of, exchanging information about) changes in its environment.
This definition of consciousness fits with our model of the mind as an
experience recorder and reproducer (ERR). The ERR model stands in contrast to the popular cognitive science or "computational" model of a mind as a digital computer. No "information processing" (no processing units, algorithms, or stored programs) is needed for the ERR model, although we also see mind as
immaterial "software" in the
material brain "hardware."
Four "Levels" of Consciousness
Instinctive Consciousness - by animals with little or no learning capability. Automatic reactions to environmental conditions are transmitted genetically. Information about past experiences (by prior generations of the organism) is only present implicitly in the inherited reactions.
Learned Consciousness - for animals whose past experiences guide current choices. Conscious, but mostly habitual, reactions are developed through experience, including instruction by parents and peers.
Predictive Consciousness - The Sequencer in the ERR system can play back beyond the current situation, allowing the organism to use imagination and foresight to evaluate the future consequences of its choices.
Reflective (Normative) Consciousness– in which conscious deliberation about values influences the choice of behaviors.
All four levels are
emergent, in the sense that they did not exist in the lower, earlier levels of biological evolution.
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