consciousness

Interestingly, many users who emotionally mourned the ‘loss’ of GPT-4o expressed complete awareness of its lack of consciousness. And yet, in many cases, the subjective grief that they felt was no less real. This demonstrates that the power of the illusion is such that a given user might not actually believe that their AI companion is conscious,... See more

we now have growing reasons to suspect that agency is a genuine natural phenomenon. Biology could stop being so coy about it if only we had a proper theory of how it arises. Unfortunately, no such thing currently exists, but there’s increasing optimism that a theory of agency can be found – and, moreover, that it’s not necessarily unique to living... See more

An experiment seven years in the making has uncovered new insights into the nature of consciousness and challenges two prominent, competing scientific theories: Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT).

1. IIT suggests that consciousness emerges when information inside a system (like the brain) is highly connected

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“ Consciousness is what is like to be you. It is the set of experiences, emotions, sensations, and thoughts that occupy your day, at the center of which is always you, the experiencer. You lose consciousness when you go under anesthesia and when in a dreamless sleep, and you gain consciousness when you wake up in the morning or come up from... See more