Human and Machine Consciousness Consciousness is widely perceived as one of the most fundamental, interesting and difficult problems of our time. However, we still know next to nothing about the relationship between consciousness and the brain and we can only speculate about the consciousness of animals and machines. Human and Machine Consciousness presents a new foundation for the scientific study of consciousness. It sets out a bold interpretation of consciousness that neutralizes the philosophical problems and explains how we can make scientific predictions about the consciousness of animals, brain-damaged patients and machines. Gamez interprets the scientific study of consciousness as a search for mathematical theories that map between measurements of consciousness and measurements of the physical world. We can use artificial intelligence to discover these theories and they could make accurate predictions about the consciousness of humans, animals and artificial systems. Human and Machine Consciousness also provides original insights into unusual conscious experiences, such as hallucinations, religious experiences and out-of-body states, and demonstrates how ‘designer’ states of consciousness could be created in the future. Gamez explains difficult concepts in a clear way that closely engages with scientific research. His punchy, concise prose is packed with vivid examples, making it suitable for the educated general reader as well as philosophers and scientists. Problems are brought to life in colourful illustrations and a helpful summary is given at the end of each chapter. The endnotes provide detailed discussions of individual points and full references to the scientific and philosophical literature. |
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adult human brain Artificial Consciousness atoms biological body brain activity brute regularities bubble computer bubble of experience bubble of perception c-description c-reports causal CC sets Cognition colour Computation c-theories conscious experience contents correlates of consciousness David Gamez describe e-cause electromagnetic waves example experimental functionally connected functioning adult human glia human brain identify imagine implanted information c-theory information patterns interact interface interpreted liberal deductions linked to consciousness machine consciousness mathematical MC4 machines measure consciousness members of CC naive realism natural experiments neuron neuron activity patterns neuron firing pattern normally functioning adult offline bubbles out-of-body experience patterns and materials person’s physical brain physical c-theory physical context physical objects physical system platinum standard system PLoS Computational Biology predictions primary qualities problems properties Qualia relationship between consciousness reliable c-theory robots science of consciousness scientific secondary qualities sensory simulated spatiotemporal structures special-purpose computer tested theories of consciousness theory of implementation Tononi voltages