https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/5e7ed624986d

From the article that discusses this paper:

A new way of thinking about consciousness is sweeping through science like wildfire. Now physicists are using it to formulate the problem of consciousness in concrete mathematical terms for the first time

The abstract of the paper on arxiv:

We examine the hypothesis that consciousness can be understood as a state of matter, “perceptronium”, with distinctive information processing abilities. We explore five basic principles that may distinguish conscious matter from other physical systems such as solids, liquids and gases: the information, integration, independence, dynamics and utility principles. If such principles can identify conscious entities, then they can help solve the quantum factorization problem: why do conscious observers like us perceive the particular Hilbert space factorization corresponding to classical space (rather than Fourier space, say), and more generally, why do we perceive the world around us as a dynamic hierarchy of objects that are strongly integrated and relatively independent? Tensor factorization of matrices is found to play a central role, and our technical results include a theorem about Hamiltonian separability (defined using Hilbert-Schmidt superoperators) being maximized in the energy eigenbasis. Our approach generalizes Giulio Tononi’s integrated information framework for neural-network-based consciousness to arbitrary quantum systems, and we find interesting links to error-correcting codes, condensed matter criticality, and the Quantum Darwinism program, as well as an interesting connection between the emergence of consciousness and the emergence of time.

The link to the paper on arxiv:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.1219v2.pdf

Awsome!

http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/how-consciousness-works/

I call this the ‘attention schema theory’. It has a very simple idea at its heart: that consciousness is a schematic model of one’s state of attention. Early in evolution, perhaps hundreds of millions of years ago, brains evolved a specific set of computations to construct that model. At that point, ‘I am aware of X’ entered their repertoire of possible computations.

Andrew,

Seems logic, of a significant relevance to the matter, may be missing.  Out of curiosity, any idea how valid criticisms may be suggested?

The article summarises a book. You could read the book and publish a review of it.

Though I have only read the article and not the book, it makes perfect sense to me. It sounds like something that could be designed and built as software, and therefore tested.

Andrew,

I found your post very good reading.  Just so happens, I am studying the states of matter right now.  So the article inspired me in my studies which I enjoyed. 

For minor example, a state of matter is called a ‘phase’, which I did not see mentioned.  However, there may be even cooler points of interest in Physical Science which I did not see mentioned in the article. 

That said, they may simply be adjusting their article to a wider audience, and an article is not enough to a critique a book. So no critique is intended. Besides, I do find the subject matter interesting. I just think there may be the potential to contribute something construcitve that may make it a bit more interesting.

Thanks for posting this.

Simulatus ergo sum?