How working memory could give rise to consciousness

(scientificamerican.com)

20 points | by bookofjoe 2 hours ago

5 comments

  • mellosouls 2 minutes ago
  • albertize 1 hour ago
    In this article, the concept of working memory accounts for not consciousness but the accessibility, stability and reportability of certain contents. For example, when I am reading very carefully, I may not be concentrating on the ambient sounds, my bodily position, my peripheral vision, and the environment of the room. These contents may not have to be retained in working memory in any way as relevant information for the current activity. Nevertheless, it does not necessarily follow that these are unconscious in nature. They can be part of the background of consciousness. Hence, there is the danger that the author assumes "being available for cognitive manipulation or verbal report" to be synonymous with "being conscious." This is quite an assumption and not one arrived at from the working memory model.
    • SubiculumCode 48 minutes ago
      Yeah, binning conscious and unconscious as two categorical classes is probably wrong. There are likely gradations, especially in the context of working memory over time.
  • bookofjoe 2 hours ago
  • lambdaone 1 hour ago
    What makes this most interesting from my point of view is that this is a specific enough theory that it might be amenable to experimental investigation.
  • d00d0ff000 1 hour ago
    It does not.

    Consciousness is the echo chamber of the quantum domain, temporally propagating through cognitive technology. Memory and temporal propagation (awareness) give consciousness something to do, which makes it topically interesting and addressable.

    The quantum domain has a tremendous information density which scales through entanglement (by the tens of thousands or even millions in our neurons) allowing the ultra high definition holographic experience we (many of us) are familiar with.

    When quantum holographic memory is understood, consciousness will be better understood. The qubit is a dead end, this will be the indicator of scientific progress.

    • __patchbit__ 1 hour ago
      Does living working memory bifurcate to logical and physical maps as happens to compute memory on kernel bring up after MMU and core coherence? That being the case an owl may know what it is like to be a bat.
      • d00d0ff000 1 hour ago
        The physical nervous system is one map, and the consciousness the “moment of continuity” (like a “moment of force” in physical systems). The memory (learned inference) is another map. Consciousness animates and iteratively influences in between.

        You can fantasize that you are an owl or a bat, doing so well enough can be quite convincing. Remember, wings are arms and hands (look at a skeletal picture, you will see what I mean.)

        • lambdaone 1 hour ago
          I think you'd have great difficulty in doing either, as you are imagining what you think it might be like to be one of these animals are are almost certainly unable to encompass what they might feel it to be like; the case of bats is literally the subject of Thomas Nagel's What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
    • PaulDavisThe1st 1 hour ago
      Woo!
    • AndrewKemendo 1 hour ago
      Do you have any references for these claims?

      I’m also curious how you define consciousness.

      • mapontosevenths 0 minutes ago
        > I’m also curious how you define consciousness.

        This is what I came here for. Every article or commenter that attempts to deduce the roots of consciousness should first start by defining it. I have yet to see anyone even bother to seriously try.

        If I spent all my time trying to figure out the fundamental forces involved in floopityjoop, but refused to ever define exactly what a floopityjoop was, you would not only ignore me you'd probably either laugh at me or feel pity.

    • therobots927 1 hour ago
      Very interesting. Do you have any links to material along these lines?
      • zulux 27 minutes ago
        It conjecture, but in my opinion there's something about our brain based on the evidence.

        Three pounds of meat in one human brain can do things an entire datacenter of AI can't. Like fold clothing.

    • lambdaone 1 hour ago
      > Consciousness is the echo chamber of the quantum domain

      [citation needed]

      • mrec 1 minute ago
        I've seen this bouncing around since the early 90s, with New Agey people like Danah Zohar, and probably predates even that. There never seemed to be a whole lot to it; not much more than "well, consciousness is weird, and quantum is weird, therefore consciousness is quantum". Or maybe "well, quantum is trendy, and I'd like to make a buck, therefore..."
      • bookofjoe 54 minutes ago
        FWIW the only place I EVER see the phrase "citation needed" is on HN. That's not a good or a bad thing: it's simply an observation.
        • mrec 4 minutes ago
          Pretty sure it originated with the Wikipedia annotation. See e.g. https://xkcd.com/285/ from 2007.
        • analog31 44 minutes ago
          With apologies to the above post if I'm wrong, I've seen it as a polite way of saying, "bullshit."