A good theory of consciousness is one that predicts behavior that is unexplained by other current theories of consciousness. Einstein's General Theory was given credence because it predicted the bending of light.

What do current theories of consciousness predict that is outside common intuition about the nature of consciousness?
Many theories of consciousness are elegant, but do they predict anything out of the ordinary?
A theory of consciousness must be expressed in a formulation, consists of interpretations that are valid and predict something unexpected.
A bad theory of consciousness has ambiguous interpretations and predicts nothing out of the ordinary.
What is missing in theories of consciousness, (see: global neural workspace and higher-order theory) is an explanation of the mechanism of inference. Missing is HOW a subconscious thought leads to conscious thought.
Dennet in his inversion of reasoning alludes to the idea that it thought itself is an emergent phenomena analogous to evolution also being an emergent phenomena. Of course there are a lot of details that goes into an emergent phenomena.
We do know from Deep Learning how to create intuition. Which is commonly thought of as a System 1 (hence unconscious) process. However, you still have to tie the reflective cognition (System 2) with System 1. A lot of this is glossed over in consciousness theories.
So, going with the same analogy of General Relativity of the bending of light due to gravity, a theory of consciousness must explain why these lines appear to bend when they do not:
Because a theory of consciousness must also be a theory of perception.
@threadreaderapp unroll

More from Carlos E. Perez

Nice to discover Judea Pearl ask a fundamental question. What's an 'inductive bias'?


I crucial step on the road towards AGI is a richer vocabulary for reasoning about inductive biases.

explores the apparent impedance mismatch between inductive biases and causal reasoning. But isn't the logical thinking required for good causal reasoning also not an inductive bias?

An inductive bias is what C.S. Peirce would call a habit. It is a habit of reasoning. Logical thinking is like a Platonic solid of the many kinds of heuristics that are discovered.

The kind of black and white logic that is found in digital computers is critical to the emergence of today's information economy. This of course is not the same logic that drives the general intelligence that lives in the same economy.

More from For later read

I’ve asked Byers to clarify, but as I read this tweet, it seems that Bret Stephens included an unredacted use of the n-word in his column this week to make a point, and the column got spiked—maybe as a result?


Four times. The column used the n-word (in the context of a quote) four times. https://t.co/14vPhQZktB


For context: In 2019, a Times reporter was reprimanded for several incidents of racial insensitivity on a trip with high school students, including one in which he used the n-word in a discussion of racial slurs.

That incident became public late last month, and late last week, after 150 Times employees complained about how it had been handled, the reporter in question resigned.

In the course of all that, the Times' executive editor said that the paper does not "tolerate racist language regardless of intent.” This was the quote that Bret Stephens was pushing back against in his column. (Which, again, was deep-sixed by the paper.)

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