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The Science of Consciousness: Towards the Cybernetic Theory of Mind

4/21/2021

by Alex Vikoulov

“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.” ―Erwin Schrödinger

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? Consciousness remains scientifically elusive because it constitutes layers upon layers of non-material emergence: Reverse-engineering our thinking should be done in terms of networks, modules, algorithms and second-order emergence – meta-algorithms, or groups of modules. Neuronal circuits correlate to “immaterial” cognitive modules, and these cognitive algorithms, when activated, produce meta-algorithmic conscious awareness and phenomenal experience, all in all at least two layers of emergence on top of “physical” neurons. Furthermore, consciousness represents certain transcendent aspects of projective ontology, according to the now widely accepted Holographic Principle.

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Consciousness: Evolution of the Mind, Documentary (2021), Official Teaser Trailer Released

1/25/2021

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by Alex Vikoulov

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” –Max Planck

The study of consciousness needs to be lifted out of the mysticism that has dominated it. Consciousness is not just a matter of philosophy or spirituality. It’s a matter of hard science. It’s a matter of understanding the brain and the mind – a pattern structure made out of information. It’s also a matter of engineering. If we can understand the functionality of the brain, its neural code, then we can build the same functionality into our computer systems. There’s no consensus on what produces consciousness, but everyone regardless of metaphysical views can agree what it is like to be conscious. Given that consciousness is subjectivity, what consciousness is like is what consciousness is.

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The Timescape of Homo Sapiens: Insights on Our Time as a Species

12/24/2020

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by Alex Vikoulov

“We may have different religions, different coloured skin, but we all belong to one human race.” -Kofi Annan

The entire human race can be envisaged as one large, interconnected entity, stretching across time and space. If you could assume the God’s eye view of mankind outside of space-time, you would not only see a hundred billion or so disconnected individuals but a humanity that is more like a massive body, or perhaps a neural network, with a hundred billion cells commensurate with the total number of neurons in the human brain.

PART I. TIMESCAPE: OBJECTIVE vs. SUBJECTIVE YEARS

With the invention of language, “modern” Homo sapiens (people who were more or less like us) first appeared on the planet about 50,000 years ago. Since then, approximately 109 billion members of our species have ever been born, according to estimates by Population Reference Bureau (PRB). The current global population of about 7.8 billion represents about 7 percent of the total number of humans who have ever lived.

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Ontological Holism: The Ultimate Reality of Self-Simulating Universe, or Why We All Are One

11/7/2020

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by Alex Vikoulov

Photo: Alex M. Vikoulov

“From the light came light, and from the dark came darkness, but from whence did they appear? Yin and Yang combine to create all things, but which is the source, and which was born from it?” -Qu Yuan

When we apprehend reality as the entirety of everything that exists including all dimensionality, all events and entities in the vast space of possible minds, then by definition nothing exists outside of reality, not even “nothing.” It follows that the first cause for reality’s existence must lie within ontological reality itself, since there is nothing outside of it. This self-causation of reality is perhaps best understood in relation to the existence of your own mind. Self-simulated reality transpires as self-evident when you relate to the notion that a phenomenal mind, which is a web of patterns, conceives a certain novel pattern and simultaneously perceives it. Furthermore, the imminent natural God of Spinoza, or Absolute Consciousness, becomes intelligible by applying a scientific tool of extrapolation to the meta-systemic phenomenon of radical emergence and treating consciousness as a primary ontological mover, the Source if you will, not a by-product of material interactions.

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History Ends in Green: Terence McKenna on Evolution, Emergence and Complexity

9/24/2020

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by Alex Vikoulov

"Human history is a 25,000-year transition zone. Before you enter the zone, you're an animal. After you leave the zone, you're a 'god'." -Terence McKenna

Terence Kemp McKenna (1946–2000) was an American ethnobotanist, mystic, psychonaut, lecturer, author, and an advocate for the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, philosophy, culture, technology, environmentalism, and the theoretical origins of human consciousness.

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Universal Mind Revealed as Instantiated in a Multi-Layered Quantum Neural Network

9/10/2020

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by Antonin Tuynman, PhD | Foreword to The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution by Alex M. Vikoulov

"At a deep level all things in our Universe are ineffably interdependent and interconnected, as we are part of the Matryoshka-like mathematical object of emergent levels of complexity where consciousness pervades all levels." -Alex M. Vikoulov, The Syntellect Hypothesis

If you picked up this book, it is not unlikely that you may have heard of the early 20th century philosophical movement of Cosmism. This movement, which originated in Russia, was striving for conquering the planets and stars, for radical life extension, immortality and resurrection of our loved ones by the means of technology. Perhaps one of its most important pioneers was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, whose aspirations did not only venture into the realm of the Macro, but also explored the Micro. He spoke of the atomic world as being animated and can thus be considered a kind of cosmist-panpsychist.

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The Cybernetic Theory of Mind: The Five Foundational Axioms

8/20/2020

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by Alex M. Vikoulov

“I believe that new mathematical schemata, new systems of axioms, certainly new systems of mathematical structures will be suggested by the study of the living world.” –Stan Ulam

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.” –John Locke

This introductory article summarizes the tenets of the Cybernetic Theory of Mind (CTM) with the five foundational axioms. All of these starting assumptions for the new ontological framework are discussed in my recent book The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution. Here I try to keep this summary short and simple for the reader, maximally leaning towards a more literary, “bookish” style rather than the overly scholarly one. Also, The Cybernetic Theory of Mind is a working title for my upcoming book to be published sometime within the next couple of years for the general audience. It may be followed by academic papers to clarify some thorny issues that I intend to publish on my own or in collaboration.

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