The Engineering Thesis in Machine Consciousness

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Boltuc ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
First Person ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Machine Consciousness ◽  
The Explanatory Gap ◽  
Reductive Naturalism

I argue here that consciousness can be engineered. The claim that functional consciousness can be engineered has been persuasively put forth in regards to first-person functional consciousness; robots, for instance, can recognize colors, though there is still much debate about details of this sort of consciousness. Such consciousness has now become one of the meanings of the term phenomenal consciousness (e.g., as used by Franklin and Baars). Yet, we extend the argument beyond the tradition of behaviorist or functional reductive views on consciousness that still predominate within cognitive science. If Nagel-Chalmers-Block-style non-reductive naturalism about first-person consciousness (h-consciousness) holds true, then, eventually we should be able to understand how such consciousness operates and how it gets produced (this is not the same as bridging the explanatory gap or solving Chalmers’s hard problem of consciousness). If so, the consciousness it involves can in principle be engineered.

Phenomenal Concepts and the Materialist Constraint

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Levine
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
First Person ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Phenomenal Concept ◽  
Phenomenal Concepts ◽  
Phenomenal Concept Strategy ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

Here I address the “phenomenal concept strategy” for addressing anti-materialist intuitions, such as the explanatory gap, by appealing to the special nature of phenomenal concepts. I look in depth at several proposals, including John Perry’s influential presentation in Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness, and argue that they all fail in meeting what I call the “materialist constraint”, which is the principle that no property or relation that is not realizable in physical properties or relations be appealed to in the account. I conclude that some relation such as acquaintance must be invoked to explain our first-person access to conscience experience, and that currently no materialist model for such a relation exists.

Explaining the Qualitative Dimension of Consciousness: Prescission Instead of Reification

Dialogue ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Champagne
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Explanatory Gap ◽  
Qualitative Dimension

ABSTRACT: This paper suggests that it is largely a want of notional distinctions which fosters the “explanatory gap” that has beset the study of consciousness since T. Nagel’s revival of the topic. Modifying Ned Block’s controversial claim that we should countenance a “phenomenal-consciousness” which exists in its own right, we argue that there is a way to recuperate the intuitions he appeals to without engaging in an onerous reification of the facet in question. By renewing with the full type/token/tone trichotomy developed by C. S. Peirce, we think the distinctness Block (rightly) calls attention to can be seen as stemming not from any separate module lurking within the mind, but rather from our ability toprescindqualities from occurrences.

Explaining the “hard” problem

2019 ◽  
pp. 116-139
Author(s):  
Peter Carruthers
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Phenomenal Concepts ◽  
Reductive Explanation ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Global Workspace ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
Global Workspace Theory

This chapter shows that global-workspace theory can be developed into a satisfying, fully reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness. It shows how globally broadcast nonconceptual content enables higher-order thoughts about that content, where those thoughts can lack conceptual connections with physical, functional, or representational facts. As a result, zombies are conceivable and an (epistemic) explanatory gap is opened up. But the thoughts in question can themselves be given a fully naturalistic explanation. Hence all of the facts involved in consciousness can be fully explained. The chapter defends the reality of the phenomenal concepts needed to make this account work, and replies to a dilemma for the account proposed by David Chalmers.

The explanatory gap is still there

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 996-997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Oberauer
Keyword(s):  
Hard Problem ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Sensorimotor Contingencies ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

I argue that O'Regan & Noë's (O&N's) theory is in a no better position than any other theory to solve the “hard problem” of consciousness. Getting rid of the explanatory gap by exchanging sensorimotor contingencies for neural representations is an illusion.

Perceptual Intentionality. Attention and Consciousness

1998 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 181-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Eilan
Keyword(s):  
Physical System ◽  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Current Thinking ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
Subjective States

A representative expression of current thinking on the ‘problem of consciousness’ runs as follows. There is one, impenetrably hard problem; and a host of soluble, and in this sense easy problems. The hard problem is: how could a physical system yield subjective states? How could there be something it is like to be a physical system? This problem corresponds to a concept of consciousness invariably labelled ‘phenomenal consciousness’. It is here, with respect to phenomenal consciousness, that we encounter an ‘explanatory gap’, where it is this gap that makes the problem so hard. Nothing we can say about the workings of a physical system could begin to explain the existence and nature of subjective, phenomenal feel.

Reductive Explanation and the 'Explanatory Gap'

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Carruthers
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
The Other ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Natural Explanation ◽  
Reductive Explanation ◽  
The One ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Exponents of an ‘explanatory gap’ between physical, functional and intentional facts, on the one hand, and the facts of phenomenal consciousness, on the other, argue that there are reasons of principle why phenomenal consciousness cannot be reductively explained: Jackson (1982), (1986); Levine (1983), (1993), (2001); McGinn (1991); Sturgeon (1994), (2000); Chalmers (1996), (1999). Some of these writers claim that the existence of such a gap would warrant a belief in some form of ontological dualism (Jackson, 1982; Chalmers, 1996), whereas others argue that no such entailment holds (Levine, 1983; McGinn, 1991; Sturgeon, 1994). In the other main camp, there are people who argue that a reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness is possible in principle (Block and Stalnaker, 1999), and yet others who claim, moreover, to have provided such an explanation in practice (Dennett, 1991; Dretske, 1995; Tye, 1995,2000; Lycan, 1996; Carruthers, 2000).

Consciousness as action: The eliminativist sirens are calling

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 990-991
Author(s):  
Martin Kurthen
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Sensorimotor Theory ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

The sensorimotor theory of vision successfully blends in with the currently developing action-oriented account of cognition. As a theory of phenomenal consciousness, however, it suffers from the same shortcomings as the theories O'Regan & Noë (O&N) criticize. This is mainly due to the failure to avoid the explanatory gap by rejecting one notion of qualia while retaining the concept of experience with qualitative features in general.

Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness

2020 ◽  
pp. 437-457
Author(s):  
Josh Weisberg
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Reductive Explanation ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Explanatory Gap ◽  
Order State

Higher-order (HO) theories of consciousness hold that a mental state is conscious when it is appropriately represented by a ‘higher-order’ state, a state about another mental state. The higher-order perception (HOP) theory holds that HO representation is best modeled on perceptual processes, while the higher-order thought (HOT) theory holds that it is best modeled on thought. In addition, some HO theories hold that to be conscious, a state must be actively represented by an HO state, while others maintain that the mere disposition to be represented by an HO state is enough. The HO theory, if successful, offers a reductive explanation of mental state consciousness in terms of nonconscious HO representation. This chapter first spells out the general motivation for the HO view and the differences between HOP and HOT before considering key objections to the approach, as well as possible empirical support. Finally it looks at how the view addresses the explanatory gap and the hard problem of consciousness.

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