creators_name: Gabora, Liane editors_name: Goguen, Joseph editors_name: Forman, Robert type: journalp datestamp: 2002-10-22 lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:55:05 metadata_visibility: show title: Amplifying Phenomenal Information: Toward a Fundamental Theory of Consciousness ispublished: pub subjects: comp-sci-mach-dynam-sys subjects: neuro-mod subjects: bio-ani-cog subjects: comp-sci-complex-theory subjects: cog-psy subjects: phil-mind full_text_status: public keywords: abstract thought, amplification, closure, combination problem, concept, consciousness, context, double aspect theory, edge of chaos, episodic mind, focus, holographic memory, information, interference, light, modern mind, origin of life, panpsychism, phase transition, quantum mechanics, resonance, superposition, symbolic threshold. abstract: Fundamental approaches bypass the problem of getting consciousness from non-conscious components by positing that consciousness is a universal primitive. For example, the double aspect theory of information holds that information has a phenomenal aspect. How then do you get from phenomenal information to human consciousness? This paper proposes that an entity is conscious to the extent it amplifies information, first by trapping and integrating it through closure, and second by maintaining dynamics at the edge of chaos through simultaneous processes of divergence and convergence. The origin of life through autocatalytic closure, and the origin of an interconnected worldview through conceptual closure, induced phase transitions in the degree to which information, and thus consciousness, is locally amplified. Divergence and convergence of cognitive information may involve phenomena observed in light e.g. focusing, interference, and resonance. By making information flow inward-biased, closure shields us from external consciousness; thus the paucity of consciousness may be an illusion. date: 1999-10 date_type: published publication: Journal of Consciousness Studies volume: 9 number: 8 publisher: Imprint Academic pagerange: 3-29 refereed: TRUE referencetext: Abeles, M. and Bergman, H. (1993), ‘Spatiotemporal firing patterns in the frontal cortex of behaving monkeys’, Journal of Neurophysiology (4), pp. 1629-1638. Aerts, D., & Aerts, S. (1997), ‘Application of Quantum Statistics in Psychological Studies of Decision Processes’, in Topics in the Foundation of Statistics, ed. B. Van Fraassen (Dordrecht : Kluwer Academic). Aiello, L.C. (1996), ‘Hominine preadaptations for language and cognition’,in: Modeling the early human mind, ed. P. Mellars & K. Gibson, McDonald, pp. 80-99. Aiello, L. and Dunbar, R. (1993), ‘Neocortex size, group size, and the evolution of language’, Current Anthropology 34 , pp. 184-193. Alkon, D.L. 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