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My review of Michal Pollan's book on consciousness: www.science.org/eprint/FTJG7...

Understanding whether consciousness depends on computational roles, biological realizers, or both, is crucial for assessing the prospects of consciousness in AI and less complex animals. end/

subcomputational biological realizers favors consciousness in simpler animals. Current theories of consciousness are 'meat-neutral', but if specific physical substrates are necessary, AI may never achieve consciousness. 3/

processes, are necessary for consciousness. By contrasting computational roles with their subcomputational biological realizers, I show that there is a systematic tension in our criteria for consciousness: prioritizing computational roles favors consciousness in AI, while prioritizing 2/

Computational functionalism claims that executing certain computations is sufcient for consciousness, regardless of the physical mechanisms implementing those computations. This view neglects a compelling alternative: that subcomputational biological mechanisms, which realize computational 1/

Can Only Meat Machines be Conscious? New paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, free download until November 26 with this URL: authors.elsevier.com/a/1luwh4sIRv...

See tiny red line of link to today's actual news

I’m shocked my book is on this list. But, cool! Great company.

Consciousness before birth? Imaging studies explore the possibility | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Goodby global workspace and higher order theories

First order theories of consciousness win again

Excellent interview of @neddo.bsky.social (www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM1f...)

authors.elsevier.com/a/1kHSZ4sIRv... in this short letter in TICS, @matthiasmichel.bsky.social & @jorge-morales.bsky.social argue against the episodic memory deficit interpretation of aphantasia proposed by @andreablomkvist.bsky.social. a lack of imagery awareness may be all there is 1/2

since @neddo.bsky.social & i so rarely agree on anything other than restaurant choices, this is possibly legit 2/2

I should add that even though we do offer a possible alternative reading of the data to the one offered by @andreablomkvist.bsky.social, her work on aphantasia remains some of the best on the subject. If you’re interested in the topic, you should read her work. bsky.app/profile/hakw...

Short letter in TiCS where we (@matthiasmichel.bsky.social, @hakwan.bsky.social & @neddo.bsky.social) explore the possibility that aphantasia is unconscious mental imagery. Given aphantasics’ high performance, we propose thinking about it as blindsight of the mind’s eye. www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

Heather Cox Richardson on the events in South Korea today: "The events in Seoul also cemented the shift in social media from X to Bluesky, where news was breaking faster than anywhere else, in a way that echoed what Twitter used to be."

@matthiasmichel.bsky.social share with Hakwan Lau, Axel Cleeremans and others. Your reply is that the unconscious visual state causes feelings or imagery states that cause a high confidence higher order monitoring state that [?] comes after the first order state. Maybe. But this is an ad hoc/2

@matthiasmichel.bsky.social I said the new blindsight data suggests that the patient has an unconscious first order perceptual representation accompanied by a higher order cognitive monitoring state about the first order state. That is a counterexample to the higher order monitoring theory you/1

This metacognitive awareness without first order awareness is a problem for higher order pointer views. They will have to say that the particular kind of metacognitive awareness is not the kind that makes a first order state conscious. Sounds ad hoc.

academic.oup.com/cercor/advan... Analysis of recordings of conversations with the only carefully studied bilateral human blindsight patient reveals that he knows he is seeing red without, apparently, perceptual phenomenology of redness. 1/

24 hour police protection for the Washington Square menorah. The policeman told me they were there throughout the night every night

I wrote about Tom Nagel’s moral philosophy for the LA Review of Books https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/reflections-of-a-moral-realist-on-thomas-nagels-moral-feelings-moral-reality-and-moral-progress/