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Vol: 52(66) No: 2 / June 2007 Consciousness as Information Generation Marius Crisan Department of Computers and Software Engineering, "Politehnica" University of Timisoara, 300223 Timisoara, Romania, phone: (+40) 256-403254, e-mail: marius.crisan@cs.upt.ro, web: http://www.cs.utt.ro/~crisan Keywords: consciousness, observation, cognitive modeling, quantum brain, information. Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyze some of the properties that are most directly connected with conscious experience, and may lead to a deeper level of conceptual understanding. These properties refer to the capacity of observation, measurement and acquiring knowledge upon the environmental universe, and are discussed in terms of information theory. Using these metrics it is shown that the information content of the observed objects or phenomena follows similar laws with first and second law of thermodynamics. The conclusion is that the act of conscious awareness is an active principle pertaining to the information domain. Consciousness appears to manifest the energetic property of inducing an effect upon the observed objects, which ultimately generates the information content defining conscious states. References [1] H. P. Stapp, Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, 1993. [2] R. Penrose, Shadows of the Mind, Oxford University Press, New York, N.Y., 1994. [3] S. Hameroff and R. Penrose, \"Conscious events as orchestrated spacetime selections,\" Journal of Consciousness Studies 3(1), 1996, pp. 36-53. [4] S. Hameroff, Consciousness, Neurobiology and Quantum Mechanics: The Case for a Connection, in The Emerging Physics of Consciousness, Edited by J.A. Tuszynski, Berlin: Springer, 2006. [5] J. von Neumann, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N. J., 1955. [6] E. P. Wigner, Symmetries and Reflections, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and London, 1967, pp 171-184. [7] D. Bohm, \"A new theory of the relationship of mind and matter,\" Philosophical Psychology, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1990, pp. 271-286. [8] D. Bohm and B. J. Hiley, The Undivided Universe: an ontological interpretation of quantum theory, Routledge, London, 1993. [9] D. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. [10] M. Crisan, “\"Information Machine and the Gödelian Case,\" Sci. Bulletin of Politehnica” University of Timisoara, Transactions on AC and Computer Science, Vol. 51 (65) No.4, 2006, pp. 45-50. [11] H. P. Stapp, “Why Classical Mechanics Cannot Naturally Accommodate Consciousness but Quantum Mechanics Can,” PSYCHE: an interdisciplinary journal of research on consciousness 2(5), 1995. [12] M Crisan, \"Upon Quantum Approach in Mind Modeling,\" Sci. & Tech. Bulletin of UPT, Transactions on Automatic Control and Computer Science, Vol. 45(59), 2000, pp. 119-126. [13] J. Ellis, N. Mavromatos, D. V. Nanopoulos, in Recent Advances in the Superworld, Proc. Of the HARC Workshop, editors J.L. Lopez and D.V. Nanopoulos, Singapore, 1994. [14] D. V. Nanopoulos, “Theory of Brain Function, Quantum Mechanics and Superstrings,” ACT-08/1995, CERN-TH/95-128, CTP-TAMU-22/95, hep-ph/9505374. [15] R. A. Mould, \"Consciousness and Endogenous State Reduction: Two Experiments,\" Found. Phys. Lett. 14 (4), 2001, pp. 377-385, quant-ph/0106103. [16] G. Shan, \"Quantum collapse, consciousness and superluminal communication,\" Found. Phys. Lett, 17(2), 2004, pp.167-182. [17] A. Mershin, D. V. Nanopoulos, E. M. C. Skoulakis, “Quantum Brain?,” ACT-8/00, CTP-TAMU-18/00, quant-ph/June 2000. [18] G. Globus, “Quantum Consciousness is Cybernetic,” PSYCHE: an interdisciplinary journal of research on consciousness, 2(21), January, 1996. [19] G. J. Chaitin, Algorithmic Information Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. [20] M. Crisan, \"Establishing the Information Machine Concept,\" Scientific Bulletin of Politehnica University of Timisoara, Transactions on Automatic Control and Computer Science, Vol. 50(64) No. 2, 2005, pp. 55-62. [21] M. Crisan, \"On Shannon, Fisher, and Algorithmic Entropy in Cognitive Systems,\" Proc. on The 1st Romanian-Hungarian Joint Symposium on Applied Computational Intelligence, SACI 2004, pp. 49-56. [22] B. R. Frieden, Physics from Fisher Information-A Unification, Cambridge University Press, 1998. [23] S. C. Kak, “Information, Physics, and Computation,” Foundations of Physics, vol.26, 1996. |