A Framework for Conscious Information Processing

Scientific studies have shown that non-conscious stimuli and representations influence information processing during conscious experience. In the light of such evidence, questions about potential functional links between non-conscious brain representations and conscious experience arise. This article discusses a neural coding model capable of explaining how statistical learning mechanisms in dedicated resonant circuits could generate specific temporal activity traces of non-c...

Understanding the neural mechanism underlying subjective representation has become a central endeavor in cognitive-neuroscience. In theories of conscious perception, stimulus gaining conscious access is usually considered as a discrete neuronal event to be characterized in time or space, sometimes refer to as a 'conscious episode'. Surprisingly, the alternative hypothesis according to which conscious perception is a dynamic process has been rarely considered. Here, we discuss...

We consider the implications of the mathematical analysis of neurone-to-neurone dynamical complex networks. We show how the dynamical behaviour of small scale strongly connected networks lead naturally to non-binary information processing and thus multiple hypothesis decision making, even at the very lowest level of the brain's architecture. In turn we build on these ideas to address the hard problem of consciousness. We discuss how a proposed "dual hierarchy model", made up ...

The science of consciousness has made great strides by focusing on the behavioral and neuronal correlates of experience. However, correlates are not enough if we are to understand even basic neurological fact; nor are they of much help in cases where we would like to know if consciousness is present: patients with a few remaining islands of functioning cortex, pre-term infants, non-mammalian species, and machines that are rapidly outperforming people at driving, recognizing f...

Information processing in neural systems can be described and analysed at multiple spatiotemporal scales. Generally, information at lower levels is more fine-grained and can be coarse-grained in higher levels. However, information processed only at specific levels seems to be available for conscious awareness. We do not have direct experience of information available at the level of individual neurons, which is noisy and highly stochastic. Neither do we have experience of mor...

In this theoretical work the temporal aspect of consciousness is analyzed. We start from the notion that while conscious experience seems to change constantly, yet for any of its contents to be consciously perceived they must last for some non-zero duration of time, which appears to constitute certain conflict. We posit that, in terms of phenomenological analysis of consciousness, the temporal aspect, and this apparent conflict in particular, might be the most basic property,...

A measurement based formula for consciousness, C, as a function of time t, is constructed. The formula depends on identifying a natural relevant self-generated, time-dependent dynamical process inherent in any entity. For human beings the relevant dynamical process identified is the ensemble of brain waves, observed in EEG measurements, that are represented in the model by their measured time dependent correlation functions. These correlation functions define the accessible d...

This is a model of consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness, what it feels like, is answered. The work builds on medical research analyzing the source and mechanisms associated with our feelings. It goes further by describing a generic model with wide applicability. The model is fully consistent with medical pathways in humans, but easily extends to animals and AI. The essence of the model is the interplay between associative memory and physiology. The model is a clea...

This paper is a shorten version of the full paper that was published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology in May 2022. In recent decades, the scientific study of consciousness has significantly increased our understanding of this elusive phenomenon. Yet, despite critical development in our understanding of the functional side of consciousness, we still lack a fundamental theory regarding its phenomenal aspect. The phenomenal aspect of consciousness is the first-person answe...

Human consciousness has been a long-lasting mystery for centuries, while machine intelligence and consciousness is an arduous pursuit. Researchers have developed diverse theories for interpreting the consciousness phenomenon in human brains from different perspectives and levels. This paper surveys several main branches of consciousness theories originating from different subjects including information theory, quantum physics, cognitive psychology, physiology and computer sci...