JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS
Vol. 9: No. 5/6, 1999 & Vol. 10: No. 1, 2000
SPECIAL ISSUE
ã 2000, Published by:
Freund & Pettman Publishers
Tel Aviv/London
Price: $120, including air mail
The pioneers of
Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks were principally concerned with the
computational theory of cognition rather than with phenomenal experience. With
the maturing of cognitive science, cognitive processes are computational, in
the broad sense. These processes are implemented in the brain, which is a
neural net, and in principle are implementable in artificial neural nets.
Although object recognition, the organization of actions, and natural language
understanding may be difficult problems for AI and connectionist approaches,
the performance of artificial systems continues to improve. Trying to
understand how natural human and animal systems produce consciousness is on the
agenda of AI, cognitive science, and neuroscience. Much of the current debate
has focused on the ‘hard problem’, which no natural science or social science
theory seems adequate to explain. Despite making progress with problems of
cognition, perception, reasoning, language, and memory, science does not seem to
have the right principles to explain the experiential or phenomenal aspect of
consciousness. The ‘hard problem’ is thus the question of why experiences have
qualitative content. The fruitfulness and productivity of current research into
consciousness and cognition can be seen, in one sense, as a creative effort to
come to terms with this ‘explanatory gap’; by closing it, erasing it, or by accepting it. It seems
probable to us that this return to fundamentals will have far-reaching effects
both in terms of the standing of psychology and its related disciplines and in
the development of new technologies. New technologies will further support,
extend, and modify the range of human experience, supplanting the more limited
goal of ‘artificial intelligence’. This trend is seen most obviously in virtual
reality, media technology, and communications technology. The papers in this
issue may on the surface seem to represent a considerable diversity of
approaches. This is inevitable in a multidisciplinary field, and is to be
welcomed. The problems which are being discussed here have roots as ancient as
philosophy itself, and the solutions which are proposed, though dressed in the
modern garb of neuroscience, computational theory, connectionism, quantum
mechanics, Darwinism, or sociology, may yet conform to a basic grid of
possibilities.
Michael J. Wright
contents
Part 1
Editorial:
Consciousness and Cognition: New Approaches
What Makes Us
Conscious?
Meme Machines and
Consciousness
Towards Self-Critical
Agents
Creativity,
Intentionality and the Conscious/Unconscious Distinction: A Neural Theory
Properties of
Conscious Systems and Teleology: A Cellular Automaton Perspective
Toward the Where and
What of Consciousness in the Brain
Computational Models
of Consciousness: An Evaluation
Mind and
Inter-Subjectivity: An Anthropological Perspective
Some Principles For
Conscious Robots
States
of Consciousness in Sleep, Dream, and Beyond: A Biothermodynamic and Neurocybernetic
Evolutionary Study
Prasun K. Roy and D. Dutta Majumder
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