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Raúl

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AI Consciousness - 2009/04/21 23:25 Received by email:
Hello,
I'm just an amateur but have had this idea about robot consciousness. Many projects try to emulate the human brain and neurons to create AI and consciousness. But some researchers suggest that consciousness is an electromagnetic phenomenon. Johnjoe McFadden writes about this in his CEMI field theory. If this is the case, then brain emulation projects using software or artificial neurons will never be able to create consciousness.
The web page 'consciousentities.com' writes about McFadden's theory:

"In his view, the endogenous electromagnetic (em) field produced by the human brain contains the same information as the neurons, but in a form which is analogue, integrated and distributed."

My idea is this: why not create an artificial EM field to emulate consciousness? One could have a sphere in which 0-100 Hz EM field emulating the human brain could be produced an read out by a computer or FPGAs. Information would not be in the artificial neural networks but would be in the continuous EM field wave pattern. This might sound a crazy idea and it might not work. But if consciousness really is an EM phenomenon like Mcfadden thinks, then AI should also emulate this.

I hope I raised some new thoughts there, although I have no training in AI. Good luck!

And in a second message:

I thought that this kind of EM simulation might use wave functions of some sort. I read that the AND corporation is using wave functions to create some kind of holographic memory and data processing.

So while reading on the internet about new brain simulation projects using neural networks, I thought why not try to simulate the EM field of the brain instead. Data from sensors might be transferred to the field, manipulated via a processor or a neural network and then used to alter the field.
Something like that? I don't know.

But I hope someone might see this useful. If not to build a robot, then at least to understand the brain better.

Post edited by: Raúl, at: 2009/04/21 23:27 Raúl Arrabales Moreno. conscious-robots.com/raul

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Raúl

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Re:AI Consciousness - 2009/04/23 18:17 And here my two cents on your comments:

First of all, I think it is useful here to distinguish between functional and phenomenal aspects of Consciousness. When you refer to consciousness being produced as a consequence of electromagnetic phenomena, you are probably talking about phenomenal states.

Creating EM fields is obviously within the reach of current technology, and indeed I believe all electronic equipment produce EM signals. I am not familiar with the CEMI (Consciousness ElectroMagnetic Information field) theory [1], but if I understood it basics correctly, the endogenous electromagnetic field produced by the brain is functionally (causally) taking a role in the way neurons fire. In other words, according to this theory EM plays a functional role (not just a side effect without causal implications – epiphenomenon).

Whether the SEMI theory can be implemented in artificial devices as such, I am not sure, as you would need a mechanism/hardware able to both produce and react to EM in the appropriate manner. As the SEMI theory is not conferring any special or estrange property to the EM (it is considered just a functional mechanism), I don’t see why it couldn’t be just software simulated, without using any real electromagnetic fields. But then, we come back to the problem of phenomenal consciousness, which I don’t see addressed by this theory (maybe because I haven’t read too much about it).

About your proposal on creating EM with FPGA’s, although you can store the information you want by coding it into the generated EM, how can you manage to have your FPGA causally affected by the EM?? The problem I see is that there is no fundamental difference between keeping information representation in a FPGA itself (say regular hardware implemented neural networks) or encoding the same information in an electromagnetic field…

[1] SEMI Theory
[2] Consciousentitites.com related post Raúl Arrabales Moreno. conscious-robots.com/raul

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