Consciousness Club #27: The Collective Computation of Life

Invited speaker: Dr. Olaf Witkowski, Earth-Life Science Institute, Japan

Abstract:

Information is found all across the domain of physics, seemingly retaining all its properties regardless of the media in which it is instantiated. Substrate-independence and interoperability made possible symbolic representations such as the genetic code, allowing for life to develop upon it. The next transition closed the loop by producing organisms increasingly aware of their environment. This eventually led to human life, capable of learning the underlying principles that created it, with the invention of language and science.

Cognition can be seen as the informational software to life’s physical hardware. If life can be formulated computationally as the search for sources of free energy in an environment in order to maintain its own existence, then cognition is better understood as finding efficient encodings and algorithms to make this search probable to succeed. The clef de voûte in my work is to consider cognitive flows as the abstract computation of life, with the purpose to make the unlikely likely for the sake of its preservation.

Traditional top-down approaches to cognition infamously introduce black boxes that fail to explain underlying mechanisms and lack sufficient detail to validate models. Instead, I propose a fully bottom-up model to characterize the pathways leading artificial organisms to develop cognitive capabilities, allowing for a rigorous mathematical framing of the “invisible reality” of cognitive life in the universe. From this approach, we can derive directions for future steps for science and technology in order to make sure that our intelligence does not shrink, but on the contrary keeps expanding, in cognitive networks trading valuable information.

* Please note that the doors will close at 18:15.

WeWork Park South
110 E 28th Street
10th Floor
New York, NY 10016

Free


The Consciousness Club NYC is a study group to promote broadly transdisciplinary discussions on the neural and computational bases of consciousness, and how these concepts can be applied to other fields of interest.

Everyone is welcome to our meetings, from scientists to philosophers, to artists, technologists and engineers.

The Consciousness Club NYC is an initiative of YHouse, Inc.











When: Wed., Oct. 25, 2017 at 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Invited speaker: Dr. Olaf Witkowski, Earth-Life Science Institute, Japan

Abstract:

Information is found all across the domain of physics, seemingly retaining all its properties regardless of the media in which it is instantiated. Substrate-independence and interoperability made possible symbolic representations such as the genetic code, allowing for life to develop upon it. The next transition closed the loop by producing organisms increasingly aware of their environment. This eventually led to human life, capable of learning the underlying principles that created it, with the invention of language and science.

Cognition can be seen as the informational software to life’s physical hardware. If life can be formulated computationally as the search for sources of free energy in an environment in order to maintain its own existence, then cognition is better understood as finding efficient encodings and algorithms to make this search probable to succeed. The clef de voûte in my work is to consider cognitive flows as the abstract computation of life, with the purpose to make the unlikely likely for the sake of its preservation.

Traditional top-down approaches to cognition infamously introduce black boxes that fail to explain underlying mechanisms and lack sufficient detail to validate models. Instead, I propose a fully bottom-up model to characterize the pathways leading artificial organisms to develop cognitive capabilities, allowing for a rigorous mathematical framing of the “invisible reality” of cognitive life in the universe. From this approach, we can derive directions for future steps for science and technology in order to make sure that our intelligence does not shrink, but on the contrary keeps expanding, in cognitive networks trading valuable information.

* Please note that the doors will close at 18:15.

WeWork Park South
110 E 28th Street
10th Floor
New York, NY 10016

Free


The Consciousness Club NYC is a study group to promote broadly transdisciplinary discussions on the neural and computational bases of consciousness, and how these concepts can be applied to other fields of interest.

Everyone is welcome to our meetings, from scientists to philosophers, to artists, technologists and engineers.

The Consciousness Club NYC is an initiative of YHouse, Inc.

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