Re:How to Build Conscious Machines
by duncancarroll on Saturday June 14, 2025 @11:49AM
(#44277091)
Not that I can make sense of it all, but to be fair the last result has been demonstrated by Michael Levin's lab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VI0u5_12k
I understand the skepticism. My humor is not for everyone and I have been rather self indulgent with the presentation of my work. However the research is genuine; the thesis is basically the aggregate of my previous papers, which have all been through peer review in various conferences and journals, and the experimental code and results are all available on GitHub.
". Adaptive systems are abstraction layers are polycomputers, and a policy simultaneously completes more than one task. When the environment changes state, a subset of tasks are completed. This is the cosmic ought from which goal-directed behaviour emerges (e.g. natural selection). “Simp-maxing” systems prefer simpler policies, and “w-maxing” systems choose weaker constraints on possible worlds[...]W-maxing generalises at 110 − 500% the rate of simp-maxing. I formalise how systems delegate adaptation down their stacks."
I skimmed through it but the entire thing is just gibberish:
"In biological systems that can support bioelectric signalling, cancer occurs when cells become disconnected from that informational structure. Bioelectricity can be seen as cognitive glue."
Every chapter title is a meme reference, no offense but how is this a Computer Science doctoral thesis?