It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first.
What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990's and 2000's. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I've encountered is anywhere near as convincing.
I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there's lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.
My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar's lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman's roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461, and here is a video of Jeff Krichmar talking about some of the Darwin automata, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Uh9phc1Ow
Hi Grant. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I had not heard of Gerald Edelman, TNGS or his books and enjoyed the brief time I spent learning about them since your post.
It is clear to me that we are on a very short path towards AGI and, soon thereafeter, super general intelligence (SGI). The recreation of the mechanics of how our brain learns to build “conscious” artifcats (e.g. robots) is very interesting. I wonder what Dr. Edelman would think of the speed at which the internet operates today and the hardware and software used in the AI ecosystem? It seems that the progress being made with AI has been made without any mention of TNGS, so I’m inclined to think it is not being incorporated.
Regardless of how we get to AGI or SGI and with or without robots, all of these are glorious creations of humans. But how did everything else get here? Humans and the stars, the planets, galaxies and the entire universe is one big scientific miracle, that could only conceivably happen through a higher power. So while we are in the midst of amazing scientific breakthroughs, to keep everything in its proper perspective, remember how we got here — we were placed here by God.
I believe the physical world is a valid aspect of reality, but not the only aspect. There are spiritual and other aspects as well, I'm sure. But I can't deny science's success at explaining many aspects of the physical world, and the success of its applications. Surgery before anesthesia wasn't fun, for instance. In the same vein, I believe there is a physical aspect to consciousness, because when the brain is physically damaged in certain areas, it consistently produces the same kind of damage to consciousness, e.g. damage to certain occipital areas of the brain produces the same kind of damage to vision in all patients with that kind of brain damage. Science has been good at explaining physical phenomena that are consistent and reproducible. You know which brain theory I support.
It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first.
What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990's and 2000's. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I've encountered is anywhere near as convincing.
I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there's lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.
My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar's lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman's roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461, and here is a video of Jeff Krichmar talking about some of the Darwin automata, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Uh9phc1Ow
Hi Grant. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I had not heard of Gerald Edelman, TNGS or his books and enjoyed the brief time I spent learning about them since your post.
It is clear to me that we are on a very short path towards AGI and, soon thereafeter, super general intelligence (SGI). The recreation of the mechanics of how our brain learns to build “conscious” artifcats (e.g. robots) is very interesting. I wonder what Dr. Edelman would think of the speed at which the internet operates today and the hardware and software used in the AI ecosystem? It seems that the progress being made with AI has been made without any mention of TNGS, so I’m inclined to think it is not being incorporated.
Regardless of how we get to AGI or SGI and with or without robots, all of these are glorious creations of humans. But how did everything else get here? Humans and the stars, the planets, galaxies and the entire universe is one big scientific miracle, that could only conceivably happen through a higher power. So while we are in the midst of amazing scientific breakthroughs, to keep everything in its proper perspective, remember how we got here — we were placed here by God.
I believe the physical world is a valid aspect of reality, but not the only aspect. There are spiritual and other aspects as well, I'm sure. But I can't deny science's success at explaining many aspects of the physical world, and the success of its applications. Surgery before anesthesia wasn't fun, for instance. In the same vein, I believe there is a physical aspect to consciousness, because when the brain is physically damaged in certain areas, it consistently produces the same kind of damage to consciousness, e.g. damage to certain occipital areas of the brain produces the same kind of damage to vision in all patients with that kind of brain damage. Science has been good at explaining physical phenomena that are consistent and reproducible. You know which brain theory I support.