Give Me Five
This episode of Give Me Five explores the author Aldous Huxley’s famous essay “The Doors of Perception” which explores the nature of consciousness.
You can read the Doors of Perception here:
https://maps.org/images/pdf/books/HuxleyA1954TheDoorsOfPerception.pdf
Source
It's becoming clearer that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with primary consciousness will probably have to come first. The extended TNGS is a materialist theory. I believe the physical world is objectively real because I can't ignore the physical suffering in the world. I don't believe it is the only reality, however. I believe physical reality, and all other realities, manifest from the one fundamental reality of spiritual love. But even though the physical world is a manifestation of this deeper reality, I still believe it is real. It makes more sense to me that a manifestation of something real would also be real.