What is Consciousness and Can Machines Have It? - Part 1

Explore the Theater Model of Consciousness through a 47-minute conference talk that introduces the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) as a formalization of consciousness. Examine how this model conceptualizes consciousness as a stage observed by unconscious processors, where the machine is conscious of the stage but not the audience's thoughts. Learn about the two fundamental principles guiding CTM development: simplicity (Occam's razor) and explanatory power, including responses to Kevin Mitchell's 15x3 questions about consciousness. Discover why this model deliberately excludes a Central Executive—a commonly hypothesized director of mental activity—and understand the arguments against its existence based on lack of explanation and neural evidence. Investigate how control emerges in CTM through competition among processors that estimate information importance via an optimal, self-correcting process, where winners are selected probabilistically based on importance and broadcast their information from the stage to all processors. Gain insights into computational approaches to understanding consciousness and the possibility of machine consciousness through this theoretical framework presented at the Smale@95 conference honoring mathematician Steve Smale.