Lifeboat Foundation

The quest to understand our physical universe may depend on investigating our own mind.

By Amy Brady

Summary: A new study reveals insights into how general anesthesia affects consciousness and sensory perception.

Using animal models, researchers found that while propofol anesthesia allows sensory information to reach the brain, it disrupts the spread of signals across the cortex. This suggests that consciousness requires synchronized communication throughout the brain, and propofol’s effect of limiting this interconnectivity could explain its role in inducing unconsciousness.

The rise in capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) systems has led to the view that these systems might soon be conscious. However, we might be underestimating the neurobiological mechanisms underlying human consciousness.

Modern AI systems are capable of many amazing behaviors. For instance, when one uses systems like ChatGPT, the responses are (sometimes) quite human-like and intelligent. When we, humans, are interacting with ChatGPT, we consciously perceive the text the language model generates, just as you are currently consciously perceiving this text here.

The question is whether the language model also perceives our text when we prompt it. Or is it just a zombie, working based on clever pattern-matching algorithms? Based on the text it generates, it is easy to be swayed that the system might be conscious.

Are you captivated by the enigma of consciousness? Intrigued by the complexities of the human mind? Or perhaps, you’re just a seeker, thirsty for knowledge that lies beyond conventional wisdom? As a futurist, evolutionary cyberneticist, and philosopher of mind, I invite you on a mind-bending, soul-stirring expedition with a just-released remastered version of my documentary film Consciousness: Evolution of the Mind (TV-PG). Watch it now in its entirety on YouTube (Ecstadelic Media channel)!

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Consciousness: Evolution of the Mind (2023 | Remastered)

Continue reading “Watch Consciousness: Evolution of the Mind (2023” »

On this Christmas day, when many of us think of departed loved ones, we have a holiday special for you: A frank conversation with neurosurgeon and near-death experiencer Dr. Eben Alexander, on the survival of consciousness beyond brain function.

Copyright © 2022 by Essentia Foundation. All rights reserved.
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As long as people have been alive, they’ve wanted to stay alive. For centuries, explorers have searched for the fountain of youth. And today, scientists are hard at work researching technology that can extend the human lifespan, stop or reverse aging; and even preserve a terminally ill person indefinitely, until a cure for their disease is discovered. But what if — instead of preserving our *bodies* — we could preserve our *consciousness*; by uploading it to a powerful computer. This is called *mind uploading*. And one startup has developed a procedure to do exactly this. It’s scientifically sound, there’s a waiting list to participate, and the procedure — is one hundred percent fatal. Let’s find out why.〰
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A recent experiment suggests the brain is not too warm or wet for consciousness to exist as a quantum wave that connects with the rest of the universe.

Summary: AI’s remarkable abilities, like those seen in ChatGPT, often seem conscious due to their human-like interactions. Yet, researchers suggest AI systems lack the intricacies of human consciousness. They argue that these systems don’t possess the embodied experiences or the neural mechanisms humans have. Therefore, equating AI’s abilities to genuine consciousness might be an oversimplification.

Key Facts:

When scientists measure a particle, it seems to collapse to one fixed state. Yet no one can be sure what’s causing collapse, also called reduction of the state. Some scientists and philosophers even think that wave function collapse is an elaborate illusion. This debate is called the measurement problem in quantum mechanics.

The measurement problem has led many physicists and philosophers to believe that a conscious observer is somehow acting on quantum particles. One proposal is that a conscious observer causes collapse. Another theory is that a conscious observer causes the universe to split apart, spiralling out alternate realities. These worlds would be parallel yet inaccessible to us so that we only ever see things in one single state in whatever possible world we’re stuck in. This is the Multiverse or Many Worlds theory. “The point of view that it is consciousness that reduces the state is really an absurdity,” says Penrose, adding that a belief in Many Worlds is a phase that every physicist, including himself, eventually outgrows. “I shouldn’t be so blunt because very distinguished people seem to have taken that view.” Penrose demurs. He politely but unequivocally waves off the idea that a conscious observer collapses wave functions by looking at them. Likewise, he dismisses the view that a conscious observer spins off near infinite universes with a glance. “That’s making consciousness do the job of collapsing the wave function without having a theory of consciousness,” says Penrose. “I’m turning it around and I’m saying whatever consciousness is, for quite different reasons, I think it does depend on the collapse of the wave function. On that physical process.”

What’s causing collapse? “It’s an objective phenomenon,” insists Penrose. He’s convinced this objective phenomenon has to be the fundamental force: gravity. Gravity is a central player in all of classical physics conspicuously missing from quantum mechanics.