Table of Contents Series Preface ix Table of Figures xv Foreword xvii Chapter One 1 Frontal Assault 1. Structure and Overview 4 1.1 Pathways Through the Book 4 1.2 Chapters Summary 5 2. Underlying Themes and Methods 7 2.1 Dynamics and Computation 7 2.2 Priorities and the Naturalistic Urge 9 2.3 Description Complementarity and Puzzles of Perspective 10 3. Cognitive Dissonance 12 Chapter Two 15 Zombies and Their Look-Alikes 1. An Embarrassment to Our Discipline 16 2. Building a Zombie 17 3. Zombies, Functions, and Mathematical Mysticism 22 Chapter Three 31 Information, Complexity, and Representation 1. Information is Physical 32 2. Measuring Information 36 2.1 Algorithmic Information Content 37 2.2 Joint, Relative, and Mutual Information 40 3. Grounding Representation 41 4. Gšdel De-Mystified 44 4.1 Decidability and the Halting Problem 45 4.2 Incompleteness and the Limits of Human Cognizers 49 5. Platonic Hell 51 Chapter Four 54 A Rose, By Any Other Name (Or Description) 1. Sensations and Descriptions-Preliminaries 55 2. Getting Sensations from Descriptions 56 3. 'MacMary' 59 4. A Tasty Side Note 62 5. The Third Person Problem 65 5.1 What is it Like to be Nagel? 66 5.2 Explanation-Good Arguments and Bad 68 Chapter Five 72 Functional Systems 1. Liberal Functionalism 72 1.1 General Trivialities 73 1.2 Particular Trivialities 76 1.3 Teleofunctionalism 78 2. Logical Depth Measures 80 3. Choosing Modules by Minimising Complexity 86 3.1 Minimising Functional Logical Depth 87 3.2 Functional Relevance, Equivalence, and Similarity 90 3.3 Observations and Applications 91 3.4 Chaitin's Mathematical Approach to 'Life' 94 4. Broader Concerns About Functional Decomposition 95 4.1 Decidability and Functional Decomposition 95 4.2 Natural Kinds 97 4.3 Levels, Languages, and Symbols 98 Chapter Six 103 Self Models 1. Supervenience and Levels of Explanation 104 2. Prelude to a Theory of Consciousness 108 3. Troubles With 'Mental States' 109 3.1 Frozen Qualia 110 3.2 Chopped Qualia 112 3.3 Real Qualia Need Cognition in Real Time 113 3.4 Nothingness, Nothingness, and More Nothingness? 116 4. Capturing Consciousness 117 4.1 Mileage from a Necessary Connection 117 4.2 Implication, Entailment, and the Return of Gšdel 120 4.3 The Illusion of Merely Metaphysical Supervenience 121 5. Inside the Self Model 127 5.1 Explanatory Strategy 127 5.2 What Am I? 128 5.3 Data Structures 131 5.4 The Self Model as a Data Structure 133 5.5 What is it Like to be a Self Model? 135 Chapter Seven 141 Schršdinger's Cat is Dead 1. Two Problems of Interpretation 143 1.1 Conscious Observers 143 1.2 Quantum Consciousness 144 2. Quantum Formalism in a Nutshell 145 2.1 States and Geometry 145 2.2 Observables and Matrix Operations 147 2.3 Spectra and Probabilities 149 2.4 Wavepacket Reduction 151 3. Consistent Histories 152 3.1 Consistency Conditions 153 3.2 Complementary Logics 155 4. The Classical Approximation 157 5. Interactive Decoherence 159 5.1 Macroscopic Interference 159 5.2 A Simplified Example 160 5.3 Decoherence in the General Case 162 5.4 Decoherence and Measurement Theory 163 6. Is this a FAPP? 164 7. Mind-What's QM Got to Do With It? 167 Chapter Eight 171 Building Conscious Data Structures 1. Information and the Self Model 171 1.1 Lossy Compression and Conditional Coupling 172 1.2 Coupling and Hypothesis Testing 173 2. Representation and Function in Neural Systems 174 2.1 Neural Basics 175 2.2 Neural Darwinism 183 2.3 Representation-Being One vs. Serving as One 185 3. Grossberg's Adaptive Resonance Theory 188 3.1 Competitive Feedback Networks 189 3.2 The Gated Dipole 191 3.3 ART Dynamics 193 4. Circuits of the Self Model 196 4.1 Representational Efficacy and Selective Advantage 196 4.2 Natural Emergence of the Self Model 198 4.3 Self Models, Language, and Self Awareness 201 4.4 The Symbol Grounding Non-Problem 203 Chapter Nine 208 Chaos, Computability, and Real Life 1. Too Much of a Good Thing? 210 2. Models and Computation 211 2.1 Computational Limits and Physical Limits 212 2.2 Numbers, Models, and the Real World 213 3. Dynamical Systems 214 4. Chaotic Systems 217 4.1 Defining Chaos 217 4.2 Chaos in the Real World 219 5. Extended Computability 221 5.1 Recursion Theory 221 6. Computability and Chaotic Analogue Systems 223 6.1 Super-Turing Computation 223 6.2 Super-Turing Neural Networks 224 6.3 Super-Turing Shift Map Model 227 6.4 Is the Church-Turing Thesis False? 229 7. Chaos and Cognition in Real Life 230 7.1 Model Differences and 'Computation' 231 7.2 Applicability and Relevance of Super-Turing Potential 232 Chapter Ten 236 My 'Hidden' Agenda 1. What Good is a Theory of Mind and Body? 237 1.1 Situating the Self in the Physical World 238 1.2 Self Determination and Free Will 239 1.3 Data Structures as Objects of Moral Scrutiny 240 2. A Partial Picture in Soft Focus 243 3. Philosophical Futures 247 References 257 Index 277