Is Consciousness Computable? Quantifying Integrated Information Using Algorithmic Information Theory

In this article we review Tononi's (2008) theory of consciousness as integrated information. We argue that previous formalizations of integrated information (e.g. Griffith, 2014) depend on information loss. Since lossy integration would necessitate continuous damage to existing memories, we propose it is more natural to frame consciousness as a lossless integrative process and provide a formalization of this idea using algorithmic information theory. We prove that complete lossless integration requires noncomputable functions. This result implies that if unitary consciousness exists, it cannot be modelled computationally.Comment: Maguire, P., Moser, P., Maguire, R. & Griffith, V. (2014). Is consciousness computable? Quantifying integrated information using algorithmic information theory. In P. Bello, M. Guarini, M. McShane, & B. Scassellati (Eds.), Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Societ

Surviving, and Maybe Thriving, on Vouchers

The Workforce Investment Act (WIA), the new law restructuring the nation's workforce development system, marks a significant change for job seekers and the practitioners who serve them. Under WIA, eligible job seekers will be issued Individual Training Accounts (ITAs), or vouchers, that can be used to enter training programs from a state-approved list. Whether vouchers will meet the goal of improving the quality of training will not be known for some time. However, the impact on organizations that serve job seekers will be immediate. Surviving, and Maybe Thriving, on Vouchers offers workforce development practitioners critical lessons about how they can adapt to this new environment, based on the experiences of organizations in jurisdictions that are already relying on vouchers

Whom the Gods Would Destroy, They First Make Myopic: Religion and Ethics in Cross-Disciplinary Ecological Dialogue

A Guardedly Hopeful Prognosis There is a distinct possibility that our human species, the first life form on this planet to achieve thought, may be terminally ill. We may be fatally flawed, destined for only a short tenure in this privileged little corner of our universe. But, summoning resolve, I will begin on a strained but modestly hopeful note. Then, and only then, will I make the painful plunge into an analysis of the human inter- national, multi-disciplinary myopia that may be our undoing, just as it has already contributed to the undoing of myriad species on this gifted planet. But first, the determined reach for hope. In our day the three primal violences have been uncovered. Sexism, its cousin heterosexism, and that other form of violence, called militarism, have been diagnosed. They haven’t been cured, but they have been spotted and seismic plates are crashing in church and state as we address them. Panic abounds quite understandably, as we dare to rearrange the stubbornly tenured bases and biases of intelligent life on earth. Male and female were we made, with many variations on those dyadic themes. The problem was we tried to run the world monadically; we perversely opted for a male-run world on the macho model, and it hasn’t worked. It has been waggishly and wisely said that if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Brothers and Sisters, it would not have failed. Complementarity is at our core. From the chromosomes on up we find difference, not sameness, at the center of our being