February 2025. Since my last post three years ago, I’ve explored several ideas that refine and extend the Model Theory of Consciousness. Many of these thoughts are documented in the Other Stuff section of this blog, but this post presents the most significant developments. Complexity and the “Invisible Hand” of Consciousness A crucial new perspective… Continue reading Complexity and Evolution
Author: Nick Collin
Three Good Books and The Hard Problem Revisited
I’ve recently read three excellent new books which address the subject of consciousness from different but very interesting perspectives. All three share an account of the biological basis of mind that is quite similar to the one advanced in this blog (which is encouraging; remember, you read it here first!). But none then make the… Continue reading Three Good Books and The Hard Problem Revisited
A short history of the universe – and the brain of God!
How time flies. I finished the last post with the words “To be continued” and now I find it’s three years later! But in the meantime I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reading, especially about quantum physics, and in this respect I’ve just finished a really good book called “Beyond Weird”, by Philip… Continue reading A short history of the universe – and the brain of God!
Information, quantum theory, entropy and other weird stuff
In the last blog I claimed that consciousness is an emergent property of a complex information system and that conscious experience is caused by our mental model observing itself recursively. To Chalmers’ question what is it like to be conscious I’d have to answer, well, actually, it’s like having a little man in my head… Continue reading Information, quantum theory, entropy and other weird stuff
The Hard Problem
I promised in the last blog to explain how Model Theory addresses Chalmers’ “hard problem”. Well here we go… Consciousness, it seems to me, is simply information organised in such a way that it observes itself. I’m proposing that the way the mind works is in terms of a model or simulation of the known… Continue reading The Hard Problem
More Research and a Recap on the “Easy Problems”
Returning to this blog after a gap of over two years, I thought I’d do some more research on what others have to say about consciousness. There’s a lot of stuff out there! But I find it all a bit dispiriting. On the one hand there’s a lot of philosophers arguing about rather obscure distinctions… Continue reading More Research and a Recap on the “Easy Problems”
On LSD (don’t try this at home!)
Like many of my generation, I “experimented with drugs” in my youth. The most interesting was LSD. The extraordinary and sometimes scary effects of this drug are still vivid in my memory today and I believe they are explicable in terms of Model Theory. The most obvious effect of LSD is on sensory perception, particularly… Continue reading On LSD (don’t try this at home!)
Model Theory and Art
Well so much for the science, what about Art? What, if anything, can Model Theory tell us about our appreciation of paintings, music, literature and poetry? Like consciousness, art, however we define it, has always been an integral feature of the human condition since the beginning of time and across all cultures. Like consciousness, art… Continue reading Model Theory and Art
Some research into similar theories
To recap, what I’m calling the “Model Theory” is the idea that the way our minds work is by running a model, or simulation, of everything in the world, which, crucially, contains within it a model of our selves. This, it seems to me, explains consciousness, life, the universe and everything! I’ve now done a… Continue reading Some research into similar theories
The Corollary Discharge
Many, many years ago I did a PhD on whether an area of the brain called the frontal eye fields was involved in something called the “corollary discharge”. A corollary discharge, or “efference copy”, was first postulated by Hermann von Helmholtz in the 19th century to account for the fact that when we move our eyes we… Continue reading The Corollary Discharge
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