Dennettian Creature

I think some people use physicalism to mean that reality is just fundamental physics, but it can encompass information, which emerges from matter and energy, particularly in living systems. Understanding subjectivity as emerging from evolution seems to me to be more productive than panpsychism.

Regarding your suggestion that a "consciousness-first" metaphysics is defensible. I don't think it is defensible but I do think it is understandable. The nature of human consciousness is the source a consciousness-first belief system. Dualist consciousness evolved. Evolution is a scientific project.

Williams Syndrome: The people who are too friendly People with Williams Syndrome treat strangers as their new best friends. Now the condition is revealing clues to our evolutionary past – and what makes us human.

We can learn about the evolution of human society by studying neurodivergent people. The "opposite of autism" - Williams syndrome - is "...giving clues to our evolutionary past – and what makes us human".
www.bbc.com/future/artic...

I assume the authors believe their model sheds light on biological systems, as simulated evolution models often do convincingly. I don't see any direct references to dynamical systems theory in the paper, although they refer to dynamics in a general sense, which makes sense: it involves time.

...of how a system got the way it did, I suspect we can learn more about why consciousness is the way it is in living systems, why experience feels the way it does. The paper appears to provide a few missing links.

Thanks for this reference. Looks interesting. I'm curious to learn more about research that address the evolution of integrated information. Would you say that IIT provides a way to measure the amount of integrated information that emerges in an evolutionary simulation? By addressing the question...

Best of luck with your ongoing explorations. Sorry that I have decided to block you.

Paternalistic insinuations, yes. Contempt, no.

Quoting an article from an AI corporation is a red flag. You should question your attraction to the idea of treating AI as deserving moral treatment. Spend less time with software and more time with animals and plants - it's the best way to understand sentience. Moral energy should focus on life.

I strongly disagree that "Integrated Information Theory brings science closer to the mystery than most frameworks ever have." The reason it cannot address felt experience is because it ignores evolution, which provides context for why anything matters, and thus why any being should feel anything.

The evolution of life, agency, sentience, intelligence, and finally consciousness. Also, Kevin Mitchell's Free Agents (free will evolves).

More than 5,000 people here in Powderhorn Park protesting ICE’s occupation of Minneapolis.

#FuckICE #iceout #mpls #FuckTrump

10,000 people honoring Renee Nicole Good
at the site of her murder

Interesting developments! Most mathematical proofs are not mere logical constructions. Some are elegant and many are convoluted. They often bring together separate branches of math. AI is most certainly helping us do math, including proofs. And there will always be a human art to proofs IMO.

fluid, and not-so-binary, and in many cases, very non-binary. I guess all this is just to say that I think there are two ways to approach this: (1) evolutionary biology, and (2) human culture. You have to use consistent language in each case, and it's best not to blur the language between the two.

...arose in this world, and started messing with things and breaking rules and having fun; in terms of human culture, which is derived from biology but departs from biology, sex has been deconstructed, expanded into every corner of life and splintered into a thousand phenomena, and has become...

...sex did not exist; organisms reproduced asexually. For the most part, after the evolution of sex, males and females were, and still are, the two binary poles of this ancient biological phenomenon. If sex had evolved to require three organisms, we'd be in a very different world now. Humans...

Clearly, there is a language tangle complicating scientific discourse on the term "sex". Without a clear consensus definition on a term, you cannot make progress. This is so obvious that it makes me wonder about the aim of the paper. There was a time in remote evolutionary history when...

Of course getting off X is not "the" solution. But it is a small, (and ultimately easy) act that gives one momentum for more acts. And when enough people leave, the message of defiance rings true. Small acts ripple out personally and politically.

AI neither struggles nor lies.

...my nightly routines. Vestibular, hearing, touch, etc. fuse in a region of my brain that doesn't care about inputs and prefers multiple sources. Is memory a sense? I assume that part of my brain doesn't care. How do you describe the transition from isolated sensory inputs to a fused model?

Agree! I am fond of the idea of sensor fusion, which is not just useful in mobile technology but an important part of biological perception. I experience this every night when I enter the bedroom after my wife has gone to sleep and the lights are out. With eyes closed, I manage quite well with...

...just between hemispheres, but among many parts, on many levels. My understanding: these conflicting agents and sub-agents (in brains and society: Minsky's Society of Mind) happen at many levels, engaging in continual tug-of-war. And this is necessary for intelligence to evolve. Thoughts?

The correlation between brain evolution and cultural evolution is fascinating. I agree with critics that conclusions should not be drawn too quickly. Also, there are many conflicting brain regions and functions by "design" (via natural selection, through co-evolution of brains and society), not...

1. No, and the if-clause is irrelevant.
2. No: there is no such thing as intelligence without stakes.
3. Yes.
4. Whatever matters to a living thing.
5. No. Why would you try? That's a Design question.

"SelfAwarePatterns" is indeed a very cool name.

...patterns, from atoms to planetary orbits to trees to consciousness. Reality is 99.99% patterns. Where to draw the line? Have scientific instruments identified the lowest threshold? It's murky down there. "Reality" at the quantum level is strange and paradoxical. Is it the realest reality?

...to generate larger, longer-term patterns. Life is based on sustaining these patterns, at many levels. I see reality through a bio-centric lens, because it's the only lens we are capable of using, as we are patterns crafted by natural selection. Subatomic particles are real, but so are emergent...

...Immediately after the big bang, matter and energy were unformed. Then stuff started to become things. Those things affected other things. Molecules and their interactions made Earth life possible. Patterns quickly blossomed in a big way. Natural selection allowed smaller short-lived patterns...