A computational model of ... Call for Papers ideas explorations.

by Casian STEFAN, Principal Researcher at Essentia Mundi AI Lab. Contact: ai-AT-essentiamundi.com / ai.essentiamundi.com
Mar. 2024.

Please consider citation with link, if you derive work. Or contact me for collaboration. Thank you!

An articol and comments about some initiatives 2024 about "consciousness":
- Pure Awareness Computation Model.*
- And World models, A(G)I, and the Hard problem(s) of life-mind continuity: Towards a unified understanding of natural and artificial intelligence.**
- Models of Consciousness 2024, Bamberg.***

For this endeavors one has to meet some criteria, one of which is to acknowledge there is more to the conscious experience. A plethora of inner processes of intentionality, consciousness, qualia, first-person perspective, the self in a supervenience relation of an outward criteria of the significance of objects, events, tools, time. [to re-think relation]. And one should keep in mind a minimal phenomenal self-hood. That first glimpse, a pure minimal awareness, a conscious moment. [We are dreaming...citation L.W.]

Secondly that the pure awareness transcends a level of a conscious experience. And while this is broadly described in literature, one has to get a sense of the phenomenology of pure awareness, of an actual experience that differentiate it from the minimal conscious mind.

Maybe consciousness named in a traditional way.
[cite, explore what Wittgenstein says about Husserl phenomenology, conscious experience, consciousness]

From this perspective, the experience of such phenomenon is as the whole phenomenology from the first-person experience is stated: one has to have experienced in a way a kind of awareness in order to be able to properly build upon it. An enlightenment, that persists.

A computational model of the consciousness problem should also posit some further structure acknowledgement. A frame of reference, a setting within a space where this can be even imagined. Following the past articles and explorations done within EM, I can summarize:

a) if there is an attempt to have a computational framework to mind, unconsciousness, awareness, consciousness, is to frame it within a minimal set of adjacent constrains, outside actors, environment.

b) the different assumption, the seeing of the "I" not from an egological stance.

c) this should shift the entire phenomenology view, in which the environment plays a more important role, a catalyst of the experience.

d) the evolutive character, of the rolling instance of the worlds and of the actual be-in the world altering.

e) the retreat of the change capability, to a one in the digital realm. A phenomenology from the perspective of the virtual worlds experiences. And from this shifting to homo virtualis, how the whole phenomenology of pure awareness, or at some point to a minimal consciousness can mean a total meaning of the phenomenology of the past and present days. [to explore: what if this pure awareness will be a default state or the contrary a low setting as a minimal conscious entity - find a better framing]

f) the physical substrate of that experience, enabled by the stacked layers, a multidimensionality, of not an "intended" way, pushed by some external forces, looking "divine" but as a byproduct of the squeezing forces in an environment, self induced change, isolation, within a gradual unfolding, within large time scales.

g) the first hand experience, the phenomenology of some actual pure awareness, acquired even without the conscious act. An experience acquired from the way of living, an elevated awareness due to an induced multi-thread shift in living. An awareness modus that altered the inner state for the subject to loose the complete unconscious state during sleep. The incapacity nor necessity to sleep seems to be acquirable.

h) the nature of the "I," that when every adjacent inner phenomenology part can be identified, one can ascribe to the conscious experience of the "I" as the other parts that comes adjacent to each other, that in turn enacts the personal feeling of "I" as a person. A view at the intersection of some spaces, plus spaces then of thought, self-made worlds, self- referenceability through the language. An apparent complete inner world, outer world position - as the limits imposed by language, and the possibility that the actual center is not there. [to explore if this center is actually somewhere else in the form of an attractor, that itself drives life further, thought further medium change, a potential goal we are not capable of seeing]...[to say about the next level, where the former one does not have a clue that the next level should look like something precisely this way - an exploratory enaction itself].

i) the environment is prevalent in the model, so that the consciousness is the awareness of this fact. I am because of it. And an isolation leads to some other anchoring that in turn demands new adaptation strategies, thus change in ways of thinking, to devise anchoring.

A computational model of Pure Awareness, that is of heightened conscious experience, can be approached on an inverse Markov blanket. It is not it, to be defined, to be steered it in a way, it is what it is left, after all else is there, to just be, aware of the environment. And acting accordingly to the constrains or "problems." Like in an N-body problem, one can only expect that the entity is up-bringed and flows within the bodies. A chaotic system, but it flows, and is aware of this. How? There is not such thing without the other.

So, if an attempt is made in order to have a computational framework to mind, (un)consciousness, awareness, phenomenology is to frame it within a minimal set of adjacent constrains, outside pro-actors, environment. I take a shift on the phenomenology view, in which the environment/evolution plays a more important role. Agent as the instance of the env. (the OOP analogy of template) up to agent / env. confounding.

I would propose the "human Detour" view on consciousness (world altering, self-isolation from nature, societal constructs, neural stacking, evolution) and a strong symbolism substrate to it (also my test bed for consciousness across all life forms) as in: we do not act on the matter itself, but on what it represents, as an approach to such construct. This would also not be pursued on traditional immortal computational platforms (dual software-hardware limitation) but rather on mortal or other unconventional ones (a hope for halting problem mitigation.)

That would be my position if I were to submit a paper.

_____________________________________
Exploration by C. Stefan, Mar.2024 (not online) [about]
Last update: 10.Apr.2024 (versions: draft 0.1b) [versions]
"Essentia Mundi" AI Research Lab. [home]
Copyright © 2024 AI.EssentiaMundi.com, all rights reserved.
_
References: 
* Links to call for papers Pure Awareness Project:
https://mpe-project.info/the-mpe-project/
https://mpe-project.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Metzinger_MIT_Press_2024.pdf
** Links to call for submission World Models, A(G)I:
https://www.adamsafron.com/call-for-submissions
*** MoC, Bamberg:  https://amcs-community.org/events/moc5-2024/
Own:
Human detour. Consciousness. [here]
Domestication through symbols. [here]