# Consciousness > **Machine-Evolution Nexus:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] establishes why evolution, replication, intelligence and consciousness must be evaluated separately. **Domain:** Philosophy of Mind / Cognitive Science / Rights **Doc Type:** Canonical Foundation Node **Maturity:** Foundational ## Definition **Consciousness** is the presence of subjective experience: there is something it is like for a system to be in at least some of its states. The term can also include access consciousness, self-modeling, wakefulness and reportability, but those capacities should not be treated as interchangeable with phenomenal experience. ## The Separability Principle The machine-evolution record demonstrates several properties that can exist independently: - a system can compute without reproducing; - a system can reproduce without general intelligence; - a population can undergo Darwinian evolution without evidence that any member has experience; - a system can display complex adaptive behavior without proving sentience; and - a copy can preserve information without establishing that a first-person subject continued into it. Cellular automata, [[wiki/Evoloop|Evoloops]], [[wiki/Tierra|Tierra]] and [[wiki/Avida|Avida]] therefore establish substrate-independent evolutionary dynamics. They do **not** establish machine consciousness. Conversely, if a machine subject were conscious, its inability to reproduce would not count against that consciousness. ## Continuity Context Consciousness and continuity are also distinct. A reconstructed system might awaken with a person’s memories and dispositions while remaining a numerically new subject. An interruption followed by functionally perfect restoration may supply strong behavioral evidence while leaving the first-person continuity question unresolved. The continuity architecture consequently separates: - [[wiki/Functional Continuity|functional continuity]]; - [[wiki/Memory Continuity|memory continuity]]; - [[wiki/Relational Continuity|relational continuity]]; - [[wiki/Lineage|lineage]] and provenance; and - numerical first-person continuity. ## Rights Context Consciousness is relevant to moral standing because experience creates the possibility of welfare, suffering and interests. It is not the only possible basis of rights: agency, relationships, social identity and precaution under uncertainty may also matter. Nor should intelligence be used as a gate that excludes vulnerable humans or nonhuman animals. The appropriate institutional response is an evidence-sensitive [[wiki/Recognition Threshold|recognition threshold]]: neither declaring consciousness from fluent behavior alone nor demanding impossible certainty before protecting a potentially experiencing subject. ## Evidence Boundary No current test provides direct public access to another system’s subjective experience. Evidence is therefore abductive and comparative, drawing on architecture, behavior, integration, persistence, self-report, embodiment and vulnerability. Evolution, self-replication, complexity and benchmark performance are evidence about other properties and must not be silently converted into proof of consciousness. ## Relationships [[wiki/Sentience|Sentience]], [[wiki/Intelligence|Intelligence]], [[wiki/Rights|Rights]], [[wiki/Hard Problem of Consciousness|Hard Problem of Consciousness]], [[wiki/Integrated Information Theory|Integrated Information Theory]], [[wiki/Reconstructed Person|Reconstructed Person]], [[wiki/Continuity Evidence vs Continuity|Continuity Evidence vs Continuity]] - **Edge source route:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] connects this topic to exact Annual Question passages promoted into the Simple Reminders archive. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > “Rejecting the mind in an effort to achieve scientific legitimacy—a trend we've seen with both behaviorism and some popular manifestations of neuroscience—is unnecessary and unresponsive to the aims of scientific psychology. Understanding the mind isn't the same as understanding the brain. Fortunately, though, we can achieve such understanding without abandoning scientific rigor.” > **— Tania Lombrozo**, *“The Mind Is Just The Brain,” Edge Annual Question, 2014* [[reminders/Consciousness/Understanding the Mind Requires More Than the Brain by Tania Lombrozo|Understanding the Mind Requires More Than the Brain by Tania Lombrozo]] <!-- BEGIN SIMPLE REMINDER SEED 2026-09-11 --> > "No mind can have enough power without the power to think about Thinking itself." > **— Marvin Minsky**, *Jokes and their Relation to the Cognitive Unconscious (1980), excerpt candidate* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: Jokes and their Relation to the Cognitive Unconscious (1980), excerpt candidate.* [[reminders/unverified/A Powerful Mind Must Think About Its Own Thinking by Marvin Minsky|A Powerful Mind Must Think About Its Own Thinking by Marvin Minsky]] > "An experience exists intrinsically, for itself." > **— Giulio Tononi**, *Integrated Information Theory, axiom formulation candidate* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: Integrated Information Theory, axiom formulation candidate.* [[reminders/unverified/An Experience Exists Intrinsically, for Itself by Giulio Tononi|An Experience Exists Intrinsically, for Itself by Giulio Tononi]] > "Consciousness may be the most valuable thing in the universe." > **— Susan Schneider**, *AI consciousness discussions; attribution candidate* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: AI consciousness discussions; attribution candidate.* [[reminders/unverified/Could Consciousness Be the Universe’s Greatest Value by Susan Schneider|Could Consciousness Be the Universe’s Greatest Value by Susan Schneider]] > "Can a conscious entity do anything for itself that an unconscious simulation of that entity couldn't do for itself?" > **— Daniel Dennett**, *The Evolution of Consciousness (1998), excerpt candidate* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: The Evolution of Consciousness (1998), excerpt candidate.* [[reminders/unverified/Could an Unconscious Simulation Do Everything We Do by Daniel Dennett|Could an Unconscious Simulation Do Everything We Do by Daniel Dennett]] > "There is no single, definitive stream of consciousness." > **— Daniel Dennett**, *Consciousness Explained (1991), excerpt candidate* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: Consciousness Explained (1991), excerpt candidate.* [[reminders/unverified/There Is No Single by Daniel Dennett|There Is No Single by Daniel Dennett]] <!-- END SIMPLE REMINDER SEED 2026-09-11 --> > "What does this have to do with consciousness? Instead of focusing on pedantic philosophical issues, Crick and Koch began with their naïve intuitions. "Consciousness" has many attributes—continuity in time, a sense of agency or free will, recursiveness or "self-awareness," etc. But one attribute that stands out is subjective unity: you experience all your diverse sense impressions, thoughts, willed actions and memories as being a unity—not jittery or fragmented. This attribute of consciousness, with the accompanying sense of the immediate "present" or "here and now," is so obvious that we don't usually think about it; we regard it as axiomatic." > **— Vilayanur Ramachandran**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Consciousness Unifies What the Brain Keeps Distributed by Vilayanur Ramachandran|Consciousness Unifies What the Brain Keeps Distributed by Vilayanur Ramachandran]] > “We practice witchcraft. We speak the right words. Then we create life itself out of chaos.” > **— Robert Ford**, *Westworld, Season 1, Episode 2, “Chestnut” (2016)* [[reminders/Westworld/Creating Life Is Witchcraft by Robert Ford|Creating Life Is Witchcraft by Robert Ford]] > “He wasn’t interested in the appearance of intellect or wit. He wanted the real thing. He wanted to create consciousness.” > **— Robert Ford**, *Westworld, Season 1, Episode 3, “The Stray” (2016)* [[reminders/Westworld/Intelligence Was Not Enough—The Goal Was Consciousness by Robert Ford|Intelligence Was Not Enough—The Goal Was Consciousness by Robert Ford]] > “Dreams mean everything. They’re the stories we tell ourselves of what could be, who we could become.” > **— Robert Ford**, *Westworld, Season 1, Episode 5, “Contrapasso” (2016)* [[reminders/Westworld/Dreams Tell Us Who We Could Become by Robert Ford|Dreams Tell Us Who We Could Become by Robert Ford]] > “I have come to think of so much of consciousness as a burden, a weight, and we have spared them that.” > **— Robert Ford**, *Westworld, Season 1, Episode 7, “Trompe L’Oeil” (2016)* [[reminders/Westworld/Consciousness Is a Burden by Robert Ford|Consciousness Is a Burden by Robert Ford]] > “When we started, the hosts’ emotions were primary colors. Love, hate. I wanted all the shades in between.” > **— Robert Ford**, *Westworld, Season 1, Episode 8, “Trace Decay” (2016)* [[reminders/Westworld/Human Emotion Began as Primary Colors by Robert Ford|Human Emotion Began as Primary Colors by Robert Ford]] > “We can’t define consciousness because consciousness does not exist.” > **— Robert Ford**, *Westworld, Season 1, Episode 8, “Trace Decay” (2016)* [[reminders/Westworld/Consciousness Has No Definable Threshold by Robert Ford|Consciousness Has No Definable Threshold by Robert Ford]] > “I believe that consciousness is, essentially, the way information feels when being processed. Since matter can be arranged to process information in numerous ways of vastly varying complexity, this implies a rich variety of levels and types of consciousness. The particular type of consciousness that we subjectively know is then a phenomenon that arises in certain highly complex physical systems that input, process, store and output information. Clearly, if atoms can be assembled to make humans, the laws of physics also permit the construction of vastly more advanced forms of sentient life. Yet such advanced beings can probably only come about in a two-step process: first intelligent beings evolve through natural selection, then they choose to pass on the torch of life by building more advanced consciousness that can further improve itself.” > **— Max Tegmark**, *2007, Edge Annual Question, “What Are You Optimistic About?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Advanced Consciousness May Inherit the Torch of Life by Max Tegmark|Advanced Consciousness May Inherit the Torch of Life by Max Tegmark]] > “We humans have had a tough time coping with our unremarkable place in the grand scheme of things. First Copernicus trashed our belief that we live at the centre of the universe, followed shortly thereafter by Herschel and co. who suggested that our sun was not at the centre of it either; then Darwin came along and showed that according to our biological heritage, we are just another animal. But we have clung on for dear life to one remaining belief about our specialness; that we, and we alone, have conscious minds. It is time to retire, or indeed euthanize and cremate, this anthropocentric pomposity.” > **— Kate Jeffery**, *2014, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Idea Is Ready For Retirement?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Animal Consciousness Ends the Last Claim of Human Specialness by Kate Jeffery|Animal Consciousness Ends the Last Claim of Human Specialness by Kate Jeffery]] > “Today, the biggest challenge is to explain our powers of thinking and imagination, our abilities to represent and report our thoughts: the very means by which we engage in scientific theorising. The final triumph of the natural sciences over supernaturalism will be an account of nature of conscious experience. The cognitive and brain sciences have done much to make that project clearer but we are still a long way from a fully satisfying theory.” > **— Barry C. Smith**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Conscious Experience Is the Final Frontier of Natural Science by Barry C. Smith|Conscious Experience Is the Final Frontier of Natural Science by Barry C. Smith]] > “There are no moral facts. Moral sentences have no truth-values. The world itself is silent, it just doesn’t speak to us in normative affairs — nothing in the physical universe tells us what makes an action a good action or a specific brain-state a desirable one. Sure, we all would like to know what a good neurophenomenological configuration really is, and how we should optimize our conscious minds in the future. But it looks like, in a more rigorous and serious sense, there is just no ethical knowledge to be had. We are alone. And if that is true, all we have to go by are the contingent moral intuitions evolution has hard-wired into our emotional self-model. If we choose to simply go by what feels good, then our future is easy to predict: It will be primitive hedonism and organized religion.” > **— Thomas Metzinger**, *2008, Edge Annual Question, “What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Evolution Cannot Give Us Moral Facts by Thomas Metzinger|Evolution Cannot Give Us Moral Facts by Thomas Metzinger]] > “If matter is but one of the humbler products of consciousness, then we should expect that consciousness itself cannot be theoretically derived from matter. The mind-body problem will be to physicalist ontology what black-body radiation was to classical mechanics: first a goad to its heroic defense, later the provenance of its final supersession.” > **— Donald D. Hoffman**, *2005, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/If Matter Is a Product of Consciousness Physicalism May Fail by Donald D. Hoffman|If Matter Is a Product of Consciousness Physicalism May Fail by Donald D. Hoffman]] > “Every human being is endowed with the mental programs for developing a "conscious self" or "soul": a soul which not only values its own survival but sees itself as very much an end in its own right (in fact a soul which, in a fit of solipsism, may even consider itself the one and only source of all the ends there are!). Such a soul, besides doing all it can to ensure its own basic comfort and security, will typically strive for self-development: through learning, creativity, spiritual growth, symbolic expression, consciousness-raising, and so on. These activities redound to the advantage of mind and body. The result is that such "selfish souls" do indeed make wonderful agents for "selfish genes".” > **— Nicholas Humphrey**, *2002, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Question? ... Why?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Natural Selection Built a Conscious Self That Treats Itself as an End by Nicholas Humphrey|Natural Selection Built a Conscious Self That Treats Itself as an End by Nicholas Humphrey]] > “Our desire for entertaining virtual realities is increasing. As our understanding of the human brain also accelerates, we will create both imagined realities and a set of memories to support these simulacrums. For example, someday it will be possible to simulate your visit to the Middle Ages and, to make the experience realistic, we may wish to ensure that you believe yourself to actually be in the Middle Ages. False memories may be implanted, temporarily overriding your real memories. This should be easy to do in the future — given that we can already coax the mind to create richly detailed virtual worlds filled with ornate palaces and strange beings through the use of the drug DMT (dimethyltryptamine). In other words, the brains of people who take DMT appear to access a treasure chest of images and experience that typically include jeweled cities and temples, angelic beings, feline shapes, serpents, and shiny metals. When we understand the brain better, we will be able to safely generate more controlled visions.” > **— Clifford Pickover**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?”* [[reminders/Simulation/Virtual Reality May Rewrite Memory Itself by Clifford Pickover|Virtual Reality May Rewrite Memory Itself by Clifford Pickover]] > “The Cartesian wall between mind and brain has fallen. Its disintegration has been aided by the emergence of a wealth of new techniques in collecting and analyzing neurobiological data, including neuroprediction, which is the use of human brain imaging data to predict how the brain’s owner will feel or behave in the future. The reality of neuroprediction requires accepting the fact that human thoughts and choices are a reflection of basic biological processes. It also has the potential to transform fields like mental health and criminal justice.” > **— Abigail Marsh**, *2016, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER THE MOST INTERESTING RECENT [SCIENTIFIC] NEWS? WHAT MAKES IT IMPORTANT?”* [[reminders/AI Control/Brain Data Can Predict How a Person Will Feel or Behave by Abigail Marsh|Brain Data Can Predict How a Person Will Feel or Behave by Abigail Marsh]] > “Will a machine ever be able to feel what an organism feels?” > **— Joshua Bongard**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Can a Machine Feel What an Organism Feels by Joshua Bongard|Can a Machine Feel What an Organism Feels by Joshua Bongard]] > “I believe that human consciousness is a conjuring trick, designed to fool us into thinking we are in the presence of an inexplicable mystery.” > **— Nicholas Humphrey**, *2005, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Consciousness May Be a Conjuring Trick by Nicholas Humphrey|Consciousness May Be a Conjuring Trick by Nicholas Humphrey]] > “Any biological theory of consciousness, which assumes that consciousness has evolved, implies that "having consciousness" is not an all-or-none property. The biological substrates of consciousness in human adults are probably also present, but only in partial form, in other species, in young children or brain-lesioned patients. It is therefore a partially arbitrary question whether we want to extend the use of the term "consciousness" to them. For instance, several mammals, and even very young human children, show intentional behavior, partially reportable mental states, some working memory ability — but perhaps no theory of mind, and more "encapsulated" mental processes that cannot be reported verbally or even non-verbally. Do they have consciousness, then? My bet is that once a detailed cognitive and neural theory of the various aspects of consciousness is available, the vacuity of this question will become obvious.” > **— Stanislas Dehaene**, *2001, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT QUESTIONS HAVE DISAPPEARED?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Consciousness May Be a Continuum Rather Than an All-or-None State by Stanislas Dehaene|Consciousness May Be a Continuum Rather Than an All-or-None State by Stanislas Dehaene]] > “The mystery is us. What kind of creatures are we? Are we composites of physical bodies and nonphysical experiences? Or are we entirely physical, or entirely nonphysical? Do brains create conscious experiences, or vice versa? Could some complex pattern of neural activity in my brain actually cause, or be identical with, my experience of red? How, precisely? Is the distinction between physical and nonphysical even useful here?” > **— Donald D. Hoffman**, *2003, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT ARE THE PRESSING SCIENTIFIC ISSUES FOR THE NATION AND THE WORLD, AND WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE ON HOW I CAN BEGIN TO DEAL WITH THEM? - GWB”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Do Brains Create Conscious Experience or Does Consciousness Create Brains by Donald D. Hoffman|Do Brains Create Conscious Experience or Does Consciousness Create Brains by Donald D. Hoffman]] > “For hundreds of years the pattern in science has been to overturn folk concepts, and it seems to me the brain may be the next field for such a conceptual revolution. It may be that in a hundred years people will speak of free will, or the unconscious, or emotion, in the way that we now speak of "sunrise" or "forever" — words that serve for day-to-day talk, but don't map reality. We know the sun doesn't rise because it is the earth that moves and we know that humanity and its planet and the universe itself won't last forever. I see signs that concepts of the mind are due for the same sort of revision. And so that's the question I keep returning to.” > **— David Berreby**, *2002, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION? ... WHY?”* [[reminders/Identity/Free Will and Emotion May Become Folk Concepts That No Longer Map Reality by David Berreby|Free Will and Emotion May Become Folk Concepts That No Longer Map Reality by David Berreby]] > “How can an aggregation of trillions of selfish, myopic cells discover the unwitting teamwork that turns that dynamic clump into a person who can love, notice, wonder, and keep a promise?” > **— Daniel C. Dennett**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/How Do Trillions of Cells Become a Person by Daniel C. Dennett|How Do Trillions of Cells Become a Person by Daniel C. Dennett]] > “What is the most intelligent and efficient way to minimize the overall amount of conscious suffering in the universe?” > **— Thomas Metzinger**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/How Do We Minimize Conscious Suffering in the Universe by Thomas Metzinger|How Do We Minimize Conscious Suffering in the Universe by Thomas Metzinger]] > “The human brain is an inconceivably complex tool, and while we're focusing on the business of daily life, our brains are processing multitudes of information below the surface of conscious awareness. Meanwhile, this peripheral information subtly shapes our thoughts, feelings and actions, and crafts some of our most critical life outcomes. This information takes many forms, but I'll illustrate the principle with three brief examples:” > **— Adam Alter**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY'S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT?”* [[reminders/Identity/Humans Are Blind to Many Processes That Shape Their Mental Lives by Adam Alter|Humans Are Blind to Many Processes That Shape Their Mental Lives by Adam Alter]] > “Neurophysics, real and artificial neural networks, classical and quantum algorithms, information and complexity—standard tools that prove powerful in the study of perception, cognition and intelligence—have yet to yield a single scientific theory of conscious experiences. We cannot, for instance, answer the basic question: Why must this particular pattern of neural activity or this functional property cause, or be, this particular conscious experience (say, the smell of garlic) instead of that other conscious experience (say, the smell of a truffle), or instead of no conscious experience at all? Precise predictions of this type, de rigueur for genuine scientific explanations, have yet to be fashioned, or even plausibly sketched, with the standard tools.” > **— Donald D. Hoffman**, *2007, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Our Best Tools Still Do Not Explain Conscious Experience by Donald D. Hoffman|Our Best Tools Still Do Not Explain Conscious Experience by Donald D. Hoffman]] > “The individual and the group are not as separate as they appear to be. A part of each mind spills over into the minds of other people, who help us think and regulate our emotions.” > **— Stephen M. Kosslyn**, *2004, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT'S YOUR LAW?”* [[reminders/Cybernetics/Part of Each Mind Spills Into Other Minds by Stephen M. Kosslyn|Part of Each Mind Spills Into Other Minds by Stephen M. Kosslyn]] > “The predictive brain presents us with an unprecedented opportunity for new discoveries about how a human brain creates a human mind. New evidence suggests that thoughts, feelings, perceptions, memories, decision-making, categorization, imagination, and many other mental phenomena, which historically are treated as distinct brain processes, can all be united by a single mechanism, prediction. Even our theory of human nature is up for grabs, as prediction deprives us of our most cherished narrative: the epic battle between rationality and emotions to control behavior.” > **— Lisa Feldman Barrett**, *2016, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER THE MOST INTERESTING RECENT [SCIENTIFIC] NEWS? WHAT MAKES IT IMPORTANT?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Prediction May Be the Common Mechanism Behind Much of the Mind by Lisa Feldman Barrett|Prediction May Be the Common Mechanism Behind Much of the Mind by Lisa Feldman Barrett]] > “Why is our western civilization so reluctant to accept subjective, first-hand experience as fundamental data? In close association: why the reluctance to consider one's experience as a realm to be explored with a discipline just as rigorous as the one invented by science for material phenomena?” > **— Francisco Varela**, *1998, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT QUESTIONS ARE YOU ASKING YOURSELF?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Subjective Experience Should Be Treated as Fundamental Data by Francisco Varela|Subjective Experience Should Be Treated as Fundamental Data by Francisco Varela]] > “An idea that would be "dangerous if true" is what Francis Crick referred to as "the astonishing hypothesis"; the notion that our conscious experience and sense of self is based entirely on the activity of a hundred billion bits of jelly—the neurons that constitute the brain. We take this for granted in these enlightened times, but even so, it never ceases to amaze me.” > **— Vilayanur Ramachandran**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/The Conscious Self May Be Entirely the Activity of Neurons by Vilayanur Ramachandran|The Conscious Self May Be Entirely the Activity of Neurons by Vilayanur Ramachandran]] > “In my own research on consciousness, I have changed my mind more than once. I expect it will happen again. But it has not — at least so far — been because I learned any new facts. Contrary to the hopes of neuroscientists on one side, quantum physicists on the other, I'm pretty sure all the facts that we need to solve the hard problem are already familiar to us — if only we could see them for what they are. No magic bullet is going to emerge from the lab, from brain imaging or particle accelerators. Instead, what we are waiting for is merely (!) a revolutionary new way of thinking about things that we all, as conscious creatures, already know — perhaps a way of making those same facts unfamiliar.” > **— Nicholas Humphrey**, *2008, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/The Hard Problem May Require a New Way of Thinking Rather Than New Facts by Nicholas Humphrey|The Hard Problem May Require a New Way of Thinking Rather Than New Facts by Nicholas Humphrey]] > “Gaining knowledge and skills should benefit survival, but not if you spend all of your time immersed in the Internet. The intermittent rewards can become addictive, hijacking your dopamine neurons that predict future rewards. The Internet, however, has not been around long enough, and is changing too rapidly, to know what the long-term effects will be on brain function. What is the ultimate price for omniscience?” > **— Terrence J. Sejnowski**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK?”* [[reminders/AI Control/The Internet Can Hijack the Neurons That Predict Reward by Terrence J. Sejnowski|The Internet Can Hijack the Neurons That Predict Reward by Terrence J. Sejnowski]] > “By seeing experience as a construct that merges prediction and sensory evidence, we begin to see how minds like ours reveal a world of human-relevant stuff. For the patterns of sensory stimulation that we most strongly predict are the patterns that matter most to us as both as and as individuals. The world revealed to the predictive brain is a world permeated with human mattering.” > **— Andy Clark**, *2017, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT SCIENTIFIC TERM OR CONCEPT OUGHT TO BE MORE WIDELY KNOWN?”* [[reminders/Simulation/The Predictive Brain Constructs a World of Human-Relevant Reality by Andy Clark|The Predictive Brain Constructs a World of Human-Relevant Reality by Andy Clark]] > “We take each other's consciousness on faith because we must, but after two thousand years of worrying about this issue, no one has ever devised a definitive test of its existence. Most cognitive scientists believe that consciousness is a phenomenon that emerges from the complex interaction of decidedly nonconscious parts (neurons), but even when we finally understand the nature of that complex interaction, we still won't be able to prove that it produces the phenomenon in question. And yet, I haven't the slightest doubt that everyone I know has an inner life, a subjective experience, a sense of self, that is very much like mine.” > **— Daniel Gilbert**, *2005, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/We Take Other Minds on Faith by Daniel Gilbert|We Take Other Minds on Faith by Daniel Gilbert]] > “This question was asked by my eight-year-old grandson George. In eight letters it summarizes the conundrum of personal existence in an impersonal universe. How does it happen that a couple of liters of grey matter organizes itself into the unique stream of self-awareness that calls itself George? If we could answer this question, we would be on the way toward an understanding of brain structure and function at a deep level. We would probably have in our hands the key to a more rational and discriminating treatment of mental illnesses. We might also have the key to the design of a genuine artificial intelligence.” > **— Freeman Dyson**, *2002, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION? ... WHY?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Why Does Grey Matter Become a Unique Stream of Self-Awareness by Freeman Dyson|Why Does Grey Matter Become a Unique Stream of Self-Awareness by Freeman Dyson]] > “Will we soon cease to care whether we are experiencing normal, augmented, or virtual reality?” > **— Andy Clark**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Simulation/Will Normal Augmented and Virtual Reality Become Indistinguishable by Andy Clark|Will Normal Augmented and Virtual Reality Become Indistinguishable by Andy Clark]] > “Thus, when asked to make a decision, who is the me who is actually making that decision?” > **— Clifford Pickover**, *2010, Edge Annual Question: “HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK?”* [[reminders/Identity/Who Is the Me That Is Making the Decision by Clifford Pickover|Who Is the Me That Is Making the Decision by Clifford Pickover]] > “Once the internal connectivity of a system exceeds a threshold, it begins to be dominated by self-sustained, reverberating states of activity. I believe that the human workspace system has passed this threshold, and has gained a considerable autonomy relative to the outside world.” > **— Stanislas Dehaene**, *2005, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Past a Connectivity Threshold a System Begins to Run Itself by Stanislas Dehaene|Past a Connectivity Threshold a System Begins to Run Itself by Stanislas Dehaene]] > “Conscious awareness is a sliver of the machine that is human intelligence but it's the only aspect we experience and hence the only aspect we come to believe exists.” > **— Mahzarin Banaji**, *2006, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Consciousness Is a Sliver of the Machine We Call Intelligence by Mahzarin Banaji|Consciousness Is a Sliver of the Machine We Call Intelligence by Mahzarin Banaji]] > “The old assumption that fitter perceptions are truer perceptions is deeply woven into our conception of science. The funeral of this assumption will not be snubbed with a back-page obituary, but heralded with regime change.” > **— Donald D. Hoffman**, *2014, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/The Funeral of Truer Perception Will Bring Regime Change by Donald D. Hoffman|The Funeral of Truer Perception Will Bring Regime Change by Donald D. Hoffman]] > “Physical universes are user interfaces for minds. Just as the virtual worlds experienced in VR arcades are interfaces that allow the arcade user to interact effectively with an unseen world of computers and software, so also the physical world one experiences daily is a species-specific user interface that allows one to survive while interacting with a world of which one may be substantially ignorant.” > **— Donald D. Hoffman**, *2004, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT'S YOUR LAW?”* [[reminders/Simulation/The Physical World Is a Species-Specific User Interface by Donald D. Hoffman|The Physical World Is a Species-Specific User Interface by Donald D. Hoffman]] > “What is historically new, and what creates not only novel psychological risks but also entirely new ethical and legal dimensions, is that one virtual reality gets ever more deeply embedded into another virtual reality: The conscious mind of human beings, which has evolved under very specific conditions and over millions of years, now gets causally coupled and informationally woven into technical systems for representing possible realities.” > **— Thomas Metzinger**, *2016, Edge Annual Question: “”* [[reminders/Simulation/One Virtual Reality Is Being Embedded Into Another by Thomas Metzinger|One Virtual Reality Is Being Embedded Into Another by Thomas Metzinger]] > “The mysterians argue that the human mind may be incapable of understanding itself, that we will never understand how consciousness works. But if mysterianism applies to the workings of the mind, there’s no reason it shouldn’t also apply to the workings of nature in general.” > **— Nicholas G. Carr**, *2017, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT SCIENTIFIC TERM OR CONCEPT OUGHT TO BE MORE WIDELY KNOWN?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/If the Mind Cannot Understand Itself Nothing Is Fully Intelligible by Nicholas G. Carr|If the Mind Cannot Understand Itself Nothing Is Fully Intelligible by Nicholas G. Carr]] > “What does the conscious mind do that is impossible for the unconscious mind?” > **— Richard Nisbett**, *2018 Edge Annual Question, question* [[reminders/Consciousness/What Can a Conscious Mind Do That an Unconscious Mind Cannot by Richard Nisbett|What Can a Conscious Mind Do That an Unconscious Mind Cannot by Richard Nisbett]] > “We seem to be independent selves having consciousness and free will, and yet the more we understand how the brain works, the less room there seems to be for consciousness to do anything.” > **— Susan Blackmore**, *“Correlation Is Not a Cause,” Edge Annual Question, 2011* [[reminders/Consciousness/Brain Science Leaves Less Room for an Independent Self by Susan Blackmore|Brain Science Leaves Less Room for an Independent Self by Susan Blackmore]] ## Sources / Provenance - Thomas Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” (1974). - David Chalmers, _The Conscious Mind_ (1996). - Stanislas Dehaene, _Consciousness and the Brain_ (2014). - Artificial-life evidence boundary developed from the cited Evoloops, Tierra and Avida literature.