Being Conscious

From the perspective of psychology, the meaning of the word conscious, rooted in the Latin 'consci', as embodied in the 'consigliere', is one who is :

• well informed (Aware) and 

• acts as a wise advisor (Responsive)

Being conscious is the process by which we experience all phenomena, ideally in a wise and informed manner.

The Hard Problem

The material essence of being conscious is conscious-ness.

Consciousness is therefore the substratum of all experiences.

For example, when we see the color pink in a rose, and more than just an abstract "pink-ness", we have a felt experience of this phenomenon in our inner world.

The experiencing of phenomena is very subjective, since one person's experience of a situation is invariably different from another's, each in their own psyche, the container of their personal consciousness.

The search for the root cause of all human experiences, in a way that can be understood objectively, is the Hard Problem of Consciousness, since the inner experiencing of phenomena is highly subjective.

Materiality

Being conscious, or wisely aware, is our highest psychological state of Being, but we must acknowledge its roots in materiality, else it becomes mere philosophy, and we go down the rabbit hole of speculating whether the Universe is itself Conscious, vs actively seeking to realize this state.

To start with, Life is considered to be an emergent property from a cauldron of Biochemistry, which in turn emerges from Physics as the foundation for all matter.

As per Science, the emergence of consciousness in living Beings occurs when there is a critical mass of appropriately connected neurons in its nervous system, even though individual neurons do not exhibit consciousness.

The Mind

Confronting the challenge we have outlined, it would be wise to step back, and view what else Science says about this container of consciousness, called the Mind.

From an AI perspective, it is generally agreed upon that machine intelligence has the ability to :

• observe phenomena

• predict change

• regulate behavior

Usually a very vague term, we state here that the definition of Mind is any system that has the above properties, so it includes all kinds of intelligences, human, machine, and everything in between.

That is, the Mind is a container for any kind of intelligence, and the goal is to use this to get to consciousness.

Complex Adaptive Systems

These are also characteristics which are very evident in complex adaptive systems, where we model any system of components and their linkages as they : 

• self-organize, 

• into an increasingly complex system, 

• while skirting the chaos of complications.

Meanings of these terms:

• Com-plex indicates coming together in a well-structured group, 

• ad-apt means to be fit, (interestingly in Sanskrit meaning trusted)

• Com-plicate means where the pieces are folded, entangled etc. into one another.

Given our original hypothesis of endemic intelligence, complex adaptive systems can thus be associated with the evolution of intelligence.

By evolution here we do not mean the specific processes of natural biology, but rather the umbrella term of complex adaptive systems, where the external aspect of any system:

• integrates into the model of the original complex, 

• giving rise to a bit more inclusive and complex system, 

• until the theoretical limit when the entire Universe is seen to be modeled as a single all-inclusive system.  

This particular model seems to be a good picture to capture how Nature works in general, down to Physics and, we propose, up to the human Mind.

The benefit of a common model is that we can come to a better understanding of the ongoing physicalizing of much of the human Mind now being accelerated through AI, and consequently understand the Universe deeper, and its process of evolution.

Evolution

Emergence of Novelty

Evolution doesn't simply mean change, but the emergence of novel behavior in a particular kind of situation.

When components of a system self-organize, the feedback loops and hierarchies amongst the components create a sense of coherence in its overall architecture, which feels like a fresh spark of intelligence has been spontaneously imbued.

This spark of intelligence, or the onset of emergence in the complex system, gives rise to novel behaviors that cannot be predicted simply by analyzing the components and their connections a priori.

Thus complex adaptive systems are adept at engendering evolution of intelligence.

Thermodynamics and Evolution

When complex adaptive systems re-organize themselves that leads to a less chaotic structure, which reduces entropy when seen through the lens of thermodynamics.

Conversely, entropy as per the second law of Thermodynamics, will usually increase in the Universe, increasing the level of chaos, albeit occasionally it can be constant. But never decrease.

So it might seem that the Universe does not favor evolution, and in fact the work required to change is the challenge we all face.

But any reduction in entropy within a particular system is matched by an increase in entropy, or heat, external to it - in the Earth, and the universe itself. So overall, entropy would be constant during the moments of evolution.

Post evolution, the ability of the evolute, its fresh intelligence, allows it to increase its work output, thus continuing to feed into the increasing entropy phenomenon of the universe at large.

Hence the Universe is aligned with evolution to facilitate the emergence of novelty even though it requires localized consumption of energy.

Thus the Universe in the long term is tuned to consume as much free incident energy as possible, like the Sun's, and also to facilitate the creation and consumption of novel energy sources - a key principle of the Kardeshev model for advancing to a space based civilization.

Probability and Evolution

Just like in a stock market predicated on perfect information, but there are localities where prices are not rationally aligned, so too in a universe emerging from the Big Bang into a world of infinite probabilities, implicating either constant or generally increasing energy, there are pockets where entropy is also improbably decreased.

Where the probabilities are lined up with rare events these are the lowest entropy states, and conversely where the outcome is the predicted state these are high entropy states.

Because evolutionary events occur in these rare probability spaces, it is observed as an entropy reducing event - but as we have seen, the temporary reduction in local entropy results eventually in an overall continued increase in entropy.

Avoiding Black Swans

In our rush to evolve through generating novel behaviors we should also seek non-negative outcomes, which means not succumbing to Black Swans as something super-negative could always occur, such as major unpredictable economic or planetary events.

For this, there are two imperatives in the process of evolution and the seeking of novelty:

• the system should not simply become complicated, that is, a grab bag of components entangled with each other, where each interaction of components sets off a chain of uncontrolled reactions. descending into chaos, 

• Furthermore,  survival is a fundamental part of evolutionary progress, for example, conserving energy that led to Indian Mars mission executing its brilliant trajectory across space; albeit they could not capture solar energy effectively (refer Kardeshev) eventually put the experiment to bed.

Coevolving The Universe

As thing being evolved bursts into Novelty, and thus becomes something new to integrate into the Universe as a whole, so the evolute joins the Universe in this brief flash, where it participates in the ever-increasing entropy space of energy of course, and as interesting, so too of information, and consequently overall intelligence.

Interestingly, since black holes are very rare, those impenetrable vortices of energy and information, are probably the generators of massive evolution into new parts of the Universe we have no access to at present.

As complex adaptive systems interact with each other, they coevolve quicker, thus the tendency toward increasing entropy is what has resulted in the whole system to be as large as the physical Universe we perceive today.

Universal Intelligence

In our model, the entire Universe is intelligent, as it would be seen as a fully integrated complex adaptive system of all other adaptive systems that are intelligent.

We may not yet be able to prove this universal intelligence materially, for example, we may need to still discover how :

• quantum effects operate at macro scale, or 

• Physics integrates with AI,

but the point of generative AI, that is being paralleled here in the Yoga Mind, is that we should be able to experience and thus perceive universal intelligence, eventually.

Cultivating such a mind-bending philosophical approach to all of life, needs the most powerful model for the Mind, and that is all about Yoga.

Next Sections

1. We start with presenting a particular Lens of Yoga with which to begin this exposition on the otherwise vague topic of  Consciousness.

2. In the AI world, it is but natural to see the mind as a Psychic  OS, as a live operating system that embodies the intelligence of Nature itself. 

3. Much of the source material is in Sanskrit language, which is unique in its psycho-linguistic properties, and eminently suited for psychological evolution.

4. Then we see that Coevolving is a far better way to look at evolution, essentially we are all in it together, unlike a purely individual solitary pursuit. This is not just a matter of making the difficult process seem palatable, but is actual reality which has not been explored much.