"Consciousness" in medicine is to objectively judge whether others have "consciousness".
Subjectively, it is necessary to separate and think about what kind of "consciousness" we feel.
One thing that is clear about the nature of consciousness is that it is possible to distinguish between 'my consciousness' and 'the consciousness of others'.
You can't access what other people see or think, and you can't control other people's thoughts or bodies.
"Area of consciousness" is likely to be thought of as the extent to which information can be accessed or controlled.
One person can say that one range is from receiving input from sensory organs to outputting from motor organs.
The computer receives input from the sensor and outputs it to the motor.
It seems that one cannot be said to be conscious just to think of it as one range.
Even if an unconscious person moves their body with spinal cord reflex, they are not conscious.
If you consciously move your body, you may be aware that you have "free will" to decide when to move.
Even if a computer responds to an input and outputs it, it doesn't seem to have decided the timing by itself, so it seems that it has no "free will".
Spinal cord reflex: input → simple processing → output [one-way]
Conscious Action: Input → Thinking → Output【A loop at thinking? ]
Computer: Input → Processing → Output [One way? ]
If information is only flowing in one direction, it is thought that there is no consciousness.
While thinking, the flow of information loops in the brain, and it can be interpreted that it is output at arbitrary timing.
Consider the case where the neural network has loops.
If you pass current through it just once, it will continue to flow.
A loop can have two states: one in which electricity is flowing and one in which it is not.
Transitions between these two states do not require synaptic weights to be changed.
Living organisms without consciousness: current information from sensory organs → information updated in the brain → output to motor organs
Organisms with consciousness: information from sensory organs + information in the brain (imagination of past and future sensory organs) → information in the brain is updated → output to motor organs
In order to imagine the past and future states and decide on actions, information flow from inside the brain to inside the brain is necessary.
That is, an information flow loop naturally occurs.
Also, the information held by the loop allows it to decide how to act.
It means that the judgment can be changed by the current flowing in the loop only once.
From unconsciousness, behavioral patterns cannot be changed until the synaptic weights change through repeated experiences.
Consciousness makes it possible to move like one-shot learning, which is difficult for machine learning.
If there is an information loop, it can be said that there is consciousness, but it is still early.
It must be distinguished from just having a DO-LOOP clause in the program.
What kind of processing is being done by the loop seems to be related to consciousness.
In the loop by consciousness, it can be interpreted that the "state in the brain" is trying to determine the "state in the brain".
Functionally, it doesn't have to be the brain.
Broad definition of the function of consciousness: Mechanism to update the information of the "information medium" by the information of the "information medium". One consciousness is the range that can be updated and that can be used as information for updating.
The "information medium" may be the memory of a computer.
The past memory data sleeping in the brain is not included in consciousness, but there is a copy in consciousness while remembering.
Memory alone is not consciousness.
If the "update" process of information is different from that of humans, the consciousness will be different from that of humans.
I want to define it in a narrow sense so that it is equivalent to humans.
When some process is performed, if it is not random, it is said to be in line with some purpose.
Primitive organisms seem to determine the output to the motor organs based on the input from the sensory organs for the purpose of survival.
It seems that they are trying to maximize the reward by treating "pleasure" as a reward and "discomfort" as a negative reward.
Regardless of the reward, it seems to be trying to minimize the difference between the predicted future and the actually measured future by interpreting the input information.
It can be said that there is some kind of "purpose" and processing is done to satisfy it.
It doesn't have to be optimal processing because the brain isn't always optimal.
Also, depending on the stage of evolution of organisms, the “purpose” will vary.
We do not seek "awareness" until the "purpose" is exactly the same as that of humans.
Narrow definition of the functions of consciousness: In addition to the broad definition, information updating according to a certain purpose
It can be said that information is updated by "intelligence".
It can be said that consciousness provides a place for "intelligence" to loop information processing.
It should not be a one-way flow from input to output.
Working memory is required.
We need a mechanism that can determine the working memory state of the next moment from the current working memory state.
If all the processing is done by consciousness, it will be as follows.
• All external inputs are entered into the working memory.
・All external outputs are output from the working memory.
It's not difficult to give it consciousness, just loop a neural network.
What is difficult is the "intelligence" to determine the state of the next moment.
Either the brain needs to be rigorously recreated, or the "intelligence" needs to be elucidated.