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Minimal physicalism as a scale-free substrate for cognition and consciousness

Theories of consciousness and cognition that assume a neural substrate automatically regard phylogenetically basal, nonneural systems as nonconscious and noncognitive. Here, we advance a scale-free characterization of consciousness and cognition that regards basal systems, including synthetic constr...

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Autores principales: Fields, Chris, Glazebrook, James F, Levin, Michael
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8327199/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34345441
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab013
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author Fields, Chris
Glazebrook, James F
Levin, Michael
author_facet Fields, Chris
Glazebrook, James F
Levin, Michael
author_sort Fields, Chris
collection PubMed
description Theories of consciousness and cognition that assume a neural substrate automatically regard phylogenetically basal, nonneural systems as nonconscious and noncognitive. Here, we advance a scale-free characterization of consciousness and cognition that regards basal systems, including synthetic constructs, as not only informative about the structure and function of experience in more complex systems but also as offering distinct advantages for experimental manipulation. Our “minimal physicalist” approach makes no assumptions beyond those of quantum information theory, and hence is applicable from the molecular scale upwards. We show that standard concepts including integrated information, state broadcasting via small-world networks, and hierarchical Bayesian inference emerge naturally in this setting, and that common phenomena including stigmergic memory, perceptual coarse-graining, and attention switching follow directly from the thermodynamic requirements of classical computation. We show that the self-representation that lies at the heart of human autonoetic awareness can be traced as far back as, and serves the same basic functions as, the stress response in bacteria and other basal systems.
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spelling pubmed-83271992021-08-02 Minimal physicalism as a scale-free substrate for cognition and consciousness Fields, Chris Glazebrook, James F Levin, Michael Neurosci Conscious Research Article Theories of consciousness and cognition that assume a neural substrate automatically regard phylogenetically basal, nonneural systems as nonconscious and noncognitive. Here, we advance a scale-free characterization of consciousness and cognition that regards basal systems, including synthetic constructs, as not only informative about the structure and function of experience in more complex systems but also as offering distinct advantages for experimental manipulation. Our “minimal physicalist” approach makes no assumptions beyond those of quantum information theory, and hence is applicable from the molecular scale upwards. We show that standard concepts including integrated information, state broadcasting via small-world networks, and hierarchical Bayesian inference emerge naturally in this setting, and that common phenomena including stigmergic memory, perceptual coarse-graining, and attention switching follow directly from the thermodynamic requirements of classical computation. We show that the self-representation that lies at the heart of human autonoetic awareness can be traced as far back as, and serves the same basic functions as, the stress response in bacteria and other basal systems. Oxford University Press 2021-08-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8327199/ /pubmed/34345441 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab013 Text en © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Fields, Chris
Glazebrook, James F
Levin, Michael
Minimal physicalism as a scale-free substrate for cognition and consciousness
title Minimal physicalism as a scale-free substrate for cognition and consciousness
title_full Minimal physicalism as a scale-free substrate for cognition and consciousness
title_fullStr Minimal physicalism as a scale-free substrate for cognition and consciousness
title_full_unstemmed Minimal physicalism as a scale-free substrate for cognition and consciousness
title_short Minimal physicalism as a scale-free substrate for cognition and consciousness
title_sort minimal physicalism as a scale-free substrate for cognition and consciousness
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8327199/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34345441
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab013
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