Joscha: From Computation to Consciousness (31c3)

I don't particularly like that essay because the author seems focused on the idea that "your brain is a computer" is a metaphor rather than a theory (see [1] for a more nuanced discussion). The author correctly points out that past eras developed metaphors to explain how the mind might work based on the technological innovations they were familiar with, but I think there's a lot more nuance in the computational theory of the mind. Namely that the notion of computation is much more abstract, and potentially more portable across disciplines, than some of the historical examples that the author of that Aeon piece brings up. Anyway, obviously I don't have any real answers but for whatever reason the brain-as-a-computer theory rings pretty true for me and I've enjoyed reading essays and watching talks about the topic [2] [3]. [1] link [2] link [3] ▶ this video ^-- This is the first part in an ongoing series of lectures that Joscha Bach has been giving at the Chaos Communication Congress; if you watch it and find it interesting you should check out the proceeding installments.

> In general I'd say the best tactic is to learn as much as you can yourself (while remembering to be honest with yourself) and pursue general purpose coping strategies across the board (for example, mindfulness based cognitive therapy). Yup, that's exactly what I've been doing for years now. I've read through quite a bit of stuff ranging from Freud, Jung, B.F. Skinner to Edward de Bono and countless others in addition to lots of Wikipedia surfing and study reading. A rather common theme among a lot of them: Many of them went into studying psychology as an attempt to diagnose their own issues and often it feels more like reading philosophy rather than actual medical science. I wonder if we will ever be able to articulate something like a "Grand Unified Theory of the mind"? Considering how much of this is subjective to the individual and atop of that the individual's brain physiology, it seems like an impossible task. But then I see stuff like talks by Joscha Bach on C3 [0] [1] [2] and it's quite inspirational as it gives me hope that creating strong AI might actually help us understand what's going on under our own hoods a little bit better. [0] ▶ this video [1] link [2] link

Well in a way the articles approach is similar to Piaget's in the sense that the approach is also functional. The hypothesis here is that the mind is just a information processing system and the research approach therefore is developing functional models. It will either work or not, you can actually test your models. This approach doesn't just model biological structures but independently tries to find functional explanations/mechanisms that could result in a mind like system. I think the articles model is one of the most sophisticated of the highly integrated ones out there. It really is worth reading, especially the explanation for emotion and motivation i found to be quite interesting. If you need a teaser to get you going, there is also a talk by the author which is a good summary of the article: ▶ this video