Kuhn’s taxonomy of consciousness connects various theories to deep questions about human existence and AI, based on his extensive dialogue with over 200 experts.
“Out of meat, how do you get thought? That’s the grandest question,” said philosopher Patricia Churchland to Robert Lawrence Kuhn, the producer and host of the acclaimed PBS program Closer to Truth and member of FQxI’s scientific advisory council.
Kuhn has now published a comprehensive taxonomy of proposed solutions and theories regarding the hard problem of consciousness. His organizing framework aims to assess their impact on meaning, purpose, and value, as well as on AI consciousness, virtual immortality, survival beyond death, and free will. His work, titled ‘Landscape of Consciousness,’ appeared in the August 2024 issue of the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology.
Exploring the Landscape of Consciousness
Since its debut in 2000, Closer To Truth has broadcast 333 episodes, including 30 in collaboration with Foundational Questions Institute, FQxI, a science think tank and funding agency. Kuhn’s article is the culmination of numerous in-depth interviews with experts over the decades.“I have discussed consciousness with over 200 scientists and philosophers,” says Kuhn, who is himself trained in neurophysiology. “Landscape is the product of a lifetime.”
Theories and Frameworks
The article begins with the classic mind-body problem: How do the felt experiences in our minds relate to the neural processes in our brains? How do mental states, whether sensory, cognitive, emotional, or even noumenal (self-less) awareness, correlate with brain states? “Although there are families of mind-body problems, I focus tightly on phenomenal consciousness: our inner awareness, ‘what it feels like to be’ something,” says Kuhn.
Diverse Perspectives on Consciousness
Kuhn presents diverse theories of consciousness, from materialist/physicalist to nonmaterialist/nonphysicalist. These are categorized as Materialism Theories (philosophical, neurobiological, electromagnetic field, computational and informational, homeostatic and affective, embodied and enactive, relational, representational, language, phylogenetic evolution); Non-Reductive Physicalism; Quantum Theories; Integrated Information Theory; Panpsychisms; Monisms; Dualisms; Idealisms; Anomalous and Altered States Theories; and Challenge Theories. “Each explanation is self-described by its adherents,” notes Kuhn.
The taxonomy is laid out in the accompanying figure.
Methodology and Purpose
“My purpose must be humble: collect and categorize, not assess and adjudicate,” says Kuhn. “Seek insights, not answers.” Kuhn produced the organizing framework for these diverse theories of consciousness in order to explore their impact on “ultimate questions,” such as meaning, purpose, and value (if any), AI consciousness, virtual immortality, survival beyond death, and free will, he says. “Understanding consciousness at this point cannot be limited to selected ways of thinking or knowing, but should seek expansive yet rational diversity.”
Reflections on Theories of Consciousness
Having produced an article of around 175,000 words, Kuhn found that his opinions on certain proposals had evolved. “My own hunch, right here, right now might be something of a Dualism-Idealism mashup. Second place might go to some form of Quantum Consciousness, triggered by writing this paper and surprising me. Third place, counterintuitively, to a kind of Eliminative Materialism/Illusionism, combined with Neurobiological and Representational Theories.”
But, adds Kuhn, “Smart, serious folks believe radically different theories; what I believe doesn’t much matter.”
Reference: “A landscape of consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications” by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, 26 January 2024, Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology.
DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2023.12.003
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28 Comments
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
I’m not at all familiar with this theory, so won’t comment upon it specifically, but I get very nervous whenever ANYONE asserts some form of “higher” consciousness in human beings. For, while I don’t have any knock-down argument that may disprove humans as being more conscious than our fellow animals, on some very real level, I just don’t know what the term “more conscious” would even mean. I can accept that the development of sophisticated language in humans probably does affect the way that we both process and store information, this doesn’t seem to in any way affect a beings conscious experience of the world. For example, the two Silkie hens that I care for, despite having only a very basic means of communicating with one another (and with me) still clearly demonstrate that they experience the full range of conscious behaviours that we do. They get jealous, they feel empathy, they get scared, they have (the hen version of) pillow fights with each other before they go to sleep (which is to say, they play for the sake of playing), they often become embarrassed and/or self-conscious (it’s always amusing watching them feign the need to stretch a leg when you catch them doing something naughty!), and they possess a theory of mind – which allows them to act strategically for their longer-term interests, rather than simply be reactionary to any given situation. So, while humans may indeed hold capacities that my hens clearly don’t, such as the ability to invent abstract concepts like mathematics or to think that the acquisition of money is somehow correlated to emotional well-being, these are simply more complex attributes of the same underlying kind. Moreover, in asserting human specialness, one must also assert that some humans are more, or less, conscious than others are. That a person of Mensa intelligence has a richer experience of the world than a person with Down’s Syndrome does, for example. And, again, I just don’t know what that would even mean! As stated above, I’m NOT criticising this theory, for the “human exceptionalism” paradigm is both a long-standing and well-entrenched one within the business of consciousness theories. In fact, I’m not even saying that humans AREN’T exceptionally conscious, because, taking the chicken example further down the phylogenetic path, it’s equally problematic to assert that a fruit fly or a sardine may share the same degree of subjective, first-person, technicolor, “lights, camera, action!” consciousness that we do. All I’m saying is that I get a bit nervous whenever people start to assert that different animals experience different levels of consciousness, simply because I have no idea what that might even begin to mean.
The TNGS is not a completely vindicated theory yet. I’m convinced the theory and experimental method that the Darwin automata are based on is the way to a conscious machine. Such a machine(s) is more than a hundred years away, imo.
I think you made that “real”! Only in our abstract thinking we can theorize in our own mind what’s “real” or if anything is real??
Recon we just have to know that we are “here” in our own conciousnes to encourage and help others..i believe the creator of every particle has the intention for us to seek a higher purpose.. sorta like leting go of our own “ego” to connect and show care and concern to others. Everthing is spirituality and metaphysics i’m thing. Like Jesus tried to explain..
Love (agape) is the key to peace.
Yes, you have correctly recognized that there are many things that people don’t know about the brain. This is because the brain is very complex. The people who lived on the earth before us probably created the superior force that we know as the God of the Earth. Today, physicists are scientists. There are those who believe that this superior force directs the earth like a matrix. Professor Kaku believes that a superior force is monitoring the earth
I designed an abstract but full function brain – in 1967.
I honestly have the foggiest whether half of this comments are some cheeky humor, but I do know that it is as much as ridiculous as the article it’s faulty.
Also is very funny that “a taxonomy of explanations” yields no “conscious landscape” but only a manifold of elements that fill the discursive universe that addresses consciousness. Nothing but an comparative study on the subject, nothing new, original or “unspoken”. Don’t understand the fuzz about it when it clearly it’s a piece of scientific divulgation. A rather weak one as well.
What is the spiritual aspect of conciusness?Only human conciusness seems to have spiritual aspect.I am yet to read your paper.
Ivan B.Ram
Why on Earth should a LIST of any given thing then necessarily PRODUCE that thing? My cars operating manual doesn’t make the actual vehicle suddenly appear, and nor does a telephone book give birth to all those people that are listed within it, so why should a list of various consciousness theories then give rise to a theory of consciousness? In fact, it would be altogether “funny” if it did! Not the least of which reasons being that the finished blancmange would be, by necessity, so full of logical contradictions as to be entirely indigestible!
Current spiking in the brain supports strong magnetic coupling effects, I believe most notably with mechanical effects such as magneto-striction, which is part of why I suggest consciousness exists at the boundary between EM and gravity, as magneto-striction is strongly influenced by both masses and charges, in a system with a super-complex energy balance.
Any link to life is a link to consciousness, in my opinion. Behavior of non-living things such as artificial neural nets, and their learning algorithms, can also provide clues to the physics of consciousness. I believe there is testable way of linking quantum gravity to consciousness analogues. Cold temperatures may produce a retro-reflective focusing effect on matter for gravity that may compare a Hebbian coupling strength modification rule, I suppose.
Modification of lab-bench experiments that have shown the difficulty in calculating “G” at room temperature could be useful if they could incorporate spin because the basic idea is that gravity couples most strongly to the edge of the disc. The cold edge may behave similar to a directionally sensitive lightning rod for gravity.
Reads a little bit easier changing …
“compare a Hebbian” to “compare to a Hebbian”
“edge of the disc” to “edge of a spinning disc”
“cold edge” to “cold spinning edge”
… reads a little bit easier.
“gravity couples most strongly to the edge of the disc”
Gravity couples more strongly to the spinning edge, and directionally so, than implied by Newton’s law … that is what I wanted to suggest, anyway.
Bandwidth exploitation, superposition and multipath may be more relevant than entanglement in many functions closely related to these ideas. Consciousness is a sort of low-pass filter on activity levels, which fits the notion of existence at a boundary with mass oscillation frequencies (slow) and electromagnetism.
Gravity has a positive feedback aspect to it, which relates to effect mono-polarity even if not to real gravity monopolar quanta. In either event it seems at the moment that a natural critically-lossy/saturable/thresholding aspect is called for in both quantum gravity and basic neuron-type moment-to-moment integration functions. The dynamics of critical stability, chaos with shifting attractors, becomes relevant that way, it seems.
“multipath”
Perfect way to remove point-to-point coupling noise anywhere where signal retro-reflection is assumed. Even a cynic can say that avoiding noise is central to entanglement. Synapses lend to structures for adjustments matching multipath integration. Current Integration is inherently low pass filtering in EM processes, but faster than consciousness adaptation. Each neuron is, and naturally lends to, a resilient pyramidal hierarchy. Maybe it is apparent that I often use “consciousness” and “awareness” interchangeably.
“Even a cynic”
… meaning a cynic about being any form of entanglement involving gravity information and being in two places at once, for one example. Also FTL couplings in general, whether through photonic or matter particle entanglement.
If entanglement could drive the timing on something tangible with a remarkable effect, then it would be infinitely more interesting, but harnessing the alleged nonlocal/FTL effect seems to be something physicists seem to be avoiding even talking about like it’s Maxwell’s demon plus bad breath. That avoidance may appear to be contrary indicator exposing psychological guarding, or it may just be a sign people can’t get it to work yet. Belief it will never happen leaves the “spookiness” as nothing more than a spooky degree of quiet.
Lightspeed is the reasonable limit for entangled light communication, maybe entangled masses could do a bit better. A gravity dependent light-speed combined with a focused loop of gravitational information (gravitational hyper-flow) makes more sense where two distinct entangled masses appear strongly coupled to the extent of objects behaving as if made of non-local particles.
Out of consciousness, how do you get meat? That’s the grandest question REALLY. And it’s kind of unbelievable to me how physicalists don’t even notice the increasingly dubious assumption at the basis of their conception of Being.
I know when I’m awake; I don’t know when I’m asleep or when I’m unconscious. Having experienced being unconsciously induced by anesthetics during surgery and aroused afterward with a brief episode of sensing nothing, I’m unconvinced of the myriad interpretations of consciousness or even that anybody knows what they are talking about.
Dan:
You write: “I know when I’m awake; I don’t know when I’m asleep or when I’m unconscious.”
My response/questions:
1. If “unconsciousness” were to really exist, how do we prove its existence?
2. What principle enables you to recall the “experience” of deep sleep or dream and report “I slept” or “I dreamt”?
3. You probably have heard these questions before. I would be curious to hear your response.
Ravi Murthy
The comment that some ancient people probably created God is interesting because why wouldn’t any people be able to create another one? How you guys are able to not receive God’s Spirit that then fully functions in you, with you , from you and more is just you simply missing out. I’m sure not all of you will be left alone by the time you die. His promise is that we all get a chance. Make sure you don’t blow yours. Imagination is it more than criticle thinking? Don’t forget that part of our minds exist from our hearts. This Country the USA is under one God and In God We Trust are of our highest ideals. This trust is meant for us each to be by a developed relationship with our Creator. Or did you assume them to be more like logos? We have to learn to include Him into our work and daily lives more folks. Being created in His Image is supposed to mean we are family. Sometimes He feels left out by us , and gets hurt by it. One of Jesuses Aliases is Peace. Did you know that? COVID shows us that our Creators and Host are impartial. Finally, Judge not unless you be judged yourselves applies to every single area you can think about it. All of them. So remember that when we form our opinions and teach, preach, and talk about other people as right or wrong, indifferent to, or anything else, by whatever means and ways . That we are filling His shoes more than realized. Leave that to Him and His, and stop playing God so often by this one command alone! Also what’s keeping us from not using these great finished stacked stones called pyramids? That today we revier like memorials or museums? Maybe we should be using them as construction material and get some real great usages going with some? There’s nothing that indicates we’re not supposed to be reperposing things folks. Maybe once we get our new industry going full speed from the space mining operations we’ll figure this out. We have a chance to start changing our gifted planet by decades advancements in years times. Let’s get on it and rock this world before we simply die away like everyone before. Wake up and read your Bibles. Learn to acknowledge the obvious and let’s use the best of both worlds. Ours, this one and the ones around us and the ones were going to in what’s called Eternity!
Stop arguing and start studying. Your really missing out and it’s costing us all of our lives…
Religion and intelligence are effectively in opposition; religion and reasoning are effectively in opposition; religion and perceptiveness are effectively in opposition.
Accordingly, religion and morality are effectively in opposition.
Seems clear to me the “Holy Bible” is slaver tripe written by decadent smartass equator-measuring ruling elites who knew it was full of nonsense but who nonetheless had the raw power to dump their slaving problems on someone else.
Fox example, how difficult is it to not suppose the Bible’s authors were laughing to themselves over how they used a rainbow? Does it always take a few drinks?
What is the deal with apostrophe expertise and Bible banging? Is it a Russian translation thing?
The Book has a lot of sophisticated elitist Socratic-type payback written into it, a rainbow rage message over a Hemlock prescription, it seems in modern times. Amazing how many people still lack the consciousness to see it. Notice the Bible-fruit leadership that thinks it is essential to keeping the slaver rainbow tripe alive from within.
A physicist named Dyson said that if we make a sphere to store all the energy of the sun with the Dyson sphere, after a million years we can store all the energy of the stars in the galaxy. What do you think? I say this is possible because The sun always becomes a barrier to the stars of the milky way and every 60 million years the arms of the milky way collide with the stars and their planets with solar objects, and now the objects of the milky way are colliding with the solar system and I predicted In the next 3600 years, the Milky Way objects will pass through the solar system, and when the Milky Way objects pass through the solar system, about seven to eight dozen stars and planets may collide with the solar objects and the sun, and life on Earth may be destroyed
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Perhaps language and consciousness began together in a unicellular organism with the self-translating genetic code.
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