Evolving Consciousness

land of the Yoga Mind

Being Conscious

By our explicitly anthropocentric definition, being conscious is the state in which we experience phenomena, as uniquely embodied in human beings.

We need to draw a conceptual line that what makes humans uniquely human is consciousness, so as to differentiate ourselves from ever-smarter machines, yet we need to evolve from nothing by intelligence is our orginal Hypothesis, recall.

So first we describe what we are going to generate in terms of consciousness, and how, and finally that intelligence is at the core of it. That is, we are going to generate the meaning of what intelligence is to support the meaning of consciousness that we posit now.

Meaning of Consciousness

The meaning of the word conscious, rooted in the Latin 'consci', and as embodied in the 'consigliere' from famous Mafia lore, exemplifies one who is :

well informed (Aware) and
acts as a wise advisor (Responsive)

The Mind

The Mind, when it is in a conscious state, is the experiencing mechanism of phenomena.

The Mind is an energetic field that arises as an emergent phenomenon from the functioning of its wetware - a particular kind of "programming" that runs in our neural networks (including the brain).

Emergent usually means we have no idea of how this occurs, so it's but a working term to prompt further enquiry.

Intelligence

Our definition is that :

every intelligent system seeks to self-organize,
which produces the question what is the self and how to use it or realize it,

Curiosity

Hence the phenomenon of curiosity is the mark of an intelligent system.

Linguistically, intelligence is inter + legere, to read between the lines, meaning

ability to derive factual information with high probability
from limited information.

And because of the curiosity element this is proactive seeking.

Ability to act too if needed - but not essential - not inactive without awareness, but to be fully aware at the same time.

Markers

The Mind exhibits characteristics of intelligence, common across humans, machines, and everything in between :

observe phenomena (whatever is perceivable)
predict change (making an educated guess)
regulate action (an informed approach)

Human Intelligence

In Sanskrit, the intelligence to "read between the lines", or discernment, is Buddhi - yes, the same root as the name of the venerated Buddha.

In traditional education, these are the accepted views of Human Intelligence:

IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, the traditional perspective as many know, collapses an individual's mental capability into a single number correlated to their analytical abilities.
Physical Quotient attempts to accommodate the physically adept, for the body too has a certain intelligence that enables it to experience the physical world.
Emotional Quotient gauges how well we interact with other humans, or emotionally manage situations. EQ explicitly recognizes that no individual develops alone, but coevolves with others in shared experiences.
Aesthetic Quotient which hardly gets much traction in today's hyper-commercialized world, but essential to cultivate sensitivity to experiences, for expressions of beauty can spark the light of consciousness.
Multiple Intelligence is a catch-all idea, which basis derives from the observations of the Maharishi of Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo, inspiring the pedagogical basis for the Montessori, Waldorf and many such schools.

Natural Intelligence

Since we are creating a counterpoint to Artificial intelligence, it seems like Natural Intelligence would be appropriate to create a balanced perception of the world which we utilize and inhabit.

The Mind of every creature uses its sensory apparatus to create as accurate a model of its perceived world as possible to navigate this world and respond to whatever events that occur.

The more accurate this model, the more refined the Natural intelligence.

Since the sensory system can only acquire limited data of the world around, a higher degree of intelligence is required to develop a more accurate model, to "read between the lines" of what is perceived, hence intelligence.

In our model, the cultivation of Natural Intelligence falls along two dimensions, which are the characteristics of being conscious :

Awareness
Responsiveness

Awareness

By Awareness we mean the mechanical ability of the sensory system to:

pick up subtle signals,
from either within the body or from the environment - a finely-tuned "Life-Fi" antenna, if you will, and
react in realtime, with mechanical precision, almost unfailingly, in any situation (as different from responsiveness)

Awareness is a capability that is intrinsic to all creatures with a sensory system.

Most creatures have an uncanny sense of detecting even non-local disturbances, for example:

birds can detect subtle weather patterns, to time the building of a nest, or
dogs can detect impending earthquakes, and flee the area.

Of course, Humans and our domesticated creatures, have weakened that ability by disconnecting from Nature.

Aside from the obvious but challenging solution of returning all creatures to their natural habitats, this neurological sensitivity can be cultivated in urbanized Humans through the Mindful Body practice of popular Yoga, wandering mindfully in nature, and also the practice of any Art form.

Responsiveness

By Responsiveness we mean that beyond the purely reactive Mind, we are able to optimally respond to signals received by the nervous system, be it:

to thoughtfully respond, in a measured manner, or
to even ignore them altogether.

For any creature, its responsiveness to situations could be compromised depending on the environment it has been subject to, eg dogs that have been trained in a certain way.

Furthermore for Humans, the challenge of having a sensitive nervous system without proper training is that it could make our Response to particular situations seem out of control, for example becoming excessively emotional, intolerant of even the slightest of psychological hurts or physiological impact.

This psychological mastery can be cultivated by the Embodied Mind practice of deeper Yoga practices, beyond simple Mindfulness.

Sentience

Linguistically, sentience indicates some degree of sensing, and consequently acting capabilities, in other words a certain level of awareness and responsiveness, regardless of whether the source of such abilities is artificial or natural.

So sentience is an intermediate step on the way to full consciousness.

Sentient Things

What the electronic revolution started with smart Things is now evolving into AI-driven gadgets.

Albeit they lack a biological nervous system:

they have electronic sensors to observe the world around them, on non-biological substrates, and in fact even have access to non-local phenomena through an Internet of Things - sensors that proliferate in the billions, like humans connected via the Web, and
with their actuators are able to respond appropriately, and albeit they have a mechanically programmed Mind, they are perfectly capable of simulating "normal" human responses given adequate AI training.

Alien intelligences, not formed of biological matter, would be another example of sentient Things.

Sentient Creatures

Living creatures, as opposed to artificial things, have a more subtle awareness of the world, and of course have the ability to respond, albeit less physiologically limited in comparison to the speed and power of electro-mechanical things.

Also their intelligence seems limited compared to human Beings - even dolphins, orangutans or octopi - so we accord them the level of sentient Creatures.

The Hard Problem

Having laid out the overall map, now let's see the journey afoot, which has been defined as the search for consciousness.

Consciousness

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

As Yogi's in development, 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.

We are thus not in favour of panpsychism as an assumption, but as the end goal of our quest.

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.

Existential Stack
Mathematics is the scaffolding of the orange bar
Physicalized Mathematics is the ultimate materialized substrate

This critical mass of neurons that enable the property of consciousness, according to Science, occurs at something at the level of snails or slugs, that is the basic level of sentience in our model, which we have seen is further based on endemic intelligence.

From there on out, biological evolution progresses, in natural course, to increasingly endow this consciousness in creatures with complex nervous systems such as Dolphins, Octopi, and of course us Human Beings - who have the unique ability to thus engineer increased consciousness.

The Algorithmic Way

The search for consciousness has been narrowed down by some researchers into investigating the microtubule vibrations inside of neuronal structures - that resonate, to put it in their own words, "like Indian music".

These resonants, formed from raw vibrations, give rise to individualized subjective experiences, modeled on a theoretical abstraction called qualia, as yet vaguely defined.

Given modern Science's penchant to stick wires and sensors everywhere, it's likely that Science may be able to tease out and infer the actual biochemical & physical vibration patterns inside these structures of consciousness.

We could then map these patterns to actually play some Indian musical instrument that delivers nearly the same experience of subjective consciousness to other listeners.

This is akin to the theory of Rasa in the Indian arts wherein the performer plays with their choice of medium, to communicate a shared ineffable experience to the audience.

Eventually we should be able to extract the desired consciousness of an experience, and precisely deliver it in a pill, is the obvious rabbit hole down which this algorithmic way is headed.

This is driven by the dystopian consumerism model that society is wallowing in.

Swallow that idea for a second, that we are going to be consumers of consciousness itself, and see if it sits well, given all its ramifications !

Yes, maybe we can experience some fantasies, but what about the experience of actual transformation into a world we wish it to be, as an evolved human species ?

Generative Way

To achieve psychological evolution the required experience has to be internally induced, not just consumed, and in our model would increase the level of consciousness in the experience creator.

And beyond this, to externalize consciousness, instead of simply searching for it in matter, let us try and create it, we propose in the following sequence :

Biological wetware (enhancing within us first, and then inducing in external living tissues)
Chemical soupware
Physicalized mathematics

That is, infusing the human mind eventually into Physics and getting sentient matter !

An existential proof is how we demonstrate that the Universe is at least sentient, even if not fully conscious.

Don't just try to analyze consciousness or sentience - create it, assuming intelligence is endemic.

This is the way of the Yoga Mind.

Complex Adaptive Systems

To systematically generate consciousness, the Mind can be seen as a complex adaptive system, which is, any system of components and their linkages that can:

self-organize,
into an increasingly complex system,
while skirting the chaos of complications.

Meanings

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.

Evolution

The organizational structure of the Mind as a Complex adaptive systems can help to model the evolution of intelligence into consciousness.

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.

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 would be 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 our point here is that we should be able to establish universal intelligence, and generate some measure of universal consciousness - 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

We start with presenting a particular Lens of Yoga with which to begin this exposition on the otherwise vague topic of Consciousness.
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.
Much of the source material is in Sanskrit language, which is unique in its psycho-linguistic properties, and eminently suited for psychological evolution.
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.

coevolution of intelligence

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