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The current stage of consciousness science has reached an impasse. We blame the physicalist worldview for this and propose a new perspective to make progress on the problems of consciousness. Our perspective is rooted in the theory of conscious agents. We thereby stress the fundamentality of consciousness outside of spacetime, the importance of agency, and the mathematical character of the theory. For conscious agent theory (CAT) to achieve the status of a robust scientific framework, it needs to be integrated with a good explanation of perception and cognition. We argue that this role is played by the interface theory of perception (ITP), an evolutionary-based model of perception that has been previously formulated and defended by the authors. We are specifically interested in what this tells us about the possibility of AI consciousness and conclude with a somewhat counter-intuitive proposal: we live inside a simulation instantiated, not digitally, but in consciousness. Such a simulation is just an interface representation of the dynamics of conscious agents for a conscious agent. This paves the way for employing AI in consciousness science through customizing our interface.

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What are conscious experiences? Can they combine to form new experiences? What are conscious subjects? Can they combine to form new subjects? Most attempts to answer these questions assume that spacetime, and some of its particles, are fundamental. However, physicists tell us that spacetime cannot be fundamental. Spacetime, they say, is doomed. We heed the physicists, and drop the assumption that spacetime is fundamental. We assume instead that subjects and experiences are entities beyond spacetime, not within spacetime. We make this precise in a mathematical theory of conscious agents, whose dynamics are described by Markov chains. We show how (1) agents combine into more complex agents, (2) agents fuse into simpler agents, and (3) qualia fuse to create new qualia. The possible dynamics of n agents form an n(n-1)-dimensional polytope with nn vertices-the Markov polytopeMn. The total fusions of n agents and qualia form an (n-1)-dimensional simplex-the fusion simplexFn. To project the Markovian dynamics of conscious agents onto scattering processes in spacetime, we define a new map from Markov chains to decorated permutations. Such permutations-along with helicities, or masses and spins-invariantly encode all physical information used to compute scattering amplitudes. We propose that spacetime and scattering processes are a data structure that codes for interactions of conscious agents: a particle in spacetime is a projection of the Markovian dynamics of a communicating class of conscious agents.

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Does natural selection favor veridical percepts-those that accurately (if not exhaustively) depict objective reality? Perceptual and cognitive scientists standardly claim that it does. Here we formalize this claim using the tools of evolutionary game theory and Bayesian decision theory. We state and prove the "Fitness-Beats-Truth (FBT) Theorem" which shows that the claim is false: If one starts with the assumption that perception involves inference to states of the objective world, then the FBT Theorem shows that a strategy that simply seeks to maximize expected-fitness payoff, with no attempt to estimate the "true" world state, does consistently better. More precisely, the FBT Theorem provides a quantitative measure of the extent to which the fitness-only strategy dominates the truth strategy, and of how this dominance increases with the size of the perceptual space. The FBT Theorem supports the Interface Theory of Perception (e.g. Hoffman et al. in Psychon Bull Rev https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-015-0890-8 , 2015), which proposes that our perceptual systems have evolved to provide a species-specific interface to guide adaptive behavior, and not to provide a veridical representation of objective reality.

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A theory of consciousness, whatever else it may do, must address the structure of experience. Our perceptual experiences are richly structured. Simply seeing a red apple, swaying between green leaves on a stout tree, involves symmetries, geometries, orders, topologies, and algebras of events. Are these structures also present in the world, fully independent of their observation? Perceptual theorists of many persuasions-from computational to radical embodied-say yes: perception veridically presents to observers structures that exist in an observer-independent world; and it does so because natural selection shapes perceptual systems to be increasingly veridical. Here we study four structures: total orders, permutation groups, cyclic groups, and measurable spaces. We ask whether the payoff functions that drive evolution by natural selection are homomorphisms of these structures. We prove, in each case, that generically the answer is no: as the number of world states and payoff values go to infinity, the probability that a payoff function is a homomorphism goes to zero. We conclude that natural selection almost surely shapes perceptions of these structures to be non-veridical. This is consistent with the interface theory of perception, which claims that natural selection shapes perceptual systems not to provide veridical perceptions, but to serve as species-specific interfaces that guide adaptive behavior. Our results present a constraint for any theory of consciousness which assumes that structure in perceptual experience is shaped by natural selection.

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The prevalent view in cognitive science is that we construct our perception of reality in real time. But could we be misinterpreting the content of our perceptual experiences? Does what we perceive with our brain and senses reflect the true nature of reality? Might evolution have shaped our perceptions to guide adaptive behavior, without enabling us to see reality as it actually is? In a discussion moderated by Steve Paulson, cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman and neurologist Suzanne O'Sullivan analyze these questions and their profound implications for our understanding of human consciousness.

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We think of spacetime as an ancient stage on which life and consciousness in due course evolved. But the logic of evolution may force us to think again.

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What visual textures do people like and why? Here, we test whether the ecological valence theory proposed for color preferences can also predict people's preferences for visual texture. According to the theory, people should like visual textures associated with positive objects or entities and dislike visual textures associated with negative objects or entities. We compare the results for the ecological model with a more traditional texture-preference model based on computational features and find that the ecological model performs reasonably well considering its lower complexity, explaining 63% of the variance in the human preference data.

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We propose that selection favors nonveridical perceptions that are tuned to fitness. Current textbooks assert, to the contrary, that perception is useful because, in the normal case, it is veridical. Intuition, both lay and expert, clearly sides with the textbooks. We thus expected that some commentators would reject our proposal and provide counterarguments that could stimulate a productive debate. We are pleased that several commentators did indeed rise to the occasion and have argued against our proposal. We are also pleased that several others found our proposal worth exploring and have offered ways to test it, develop it, and link it more deeply to the history of ideas in the science and philosophy of perception. To both groups of commentators: thank you. Point and counterpoint, backed by data and theory, is the essence of science. We hope that the exchange recorded here will advance the scientific understanding of perception and its evolution. In what follows, we respond to the commentaries in alphabetical order.

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Perception is a product of evolution. Our perceptual systems, like our limbs and livers, have been shaped by natural selection. The effects of selection on perception can be studied using evolutionary games and genetic algorithms. To this end, we define and classify perceptual strategies and allow them to compete in evolutionary games in a variety of worlds with a variety of fitness functions. We find that veridical perceptions--strategies tuned to the true structure of the world--are routinely dominated by nonveridical strategies tuned to fitness. Veridical perceptions escape extinction only if fitness varies monotonically with truth. Thus, a perceptual strategy favored by selection is best thought of not as a window on truth but as akin to a windows interface of a PC. Just as the color and shape of an icon for a text file do not entail that the text file itself has a color or shape, so also our perceptions of space-time and objects do not entail (by the Invention of Space-Time Theorem) that objective reality has the structure of space-time and objects. An interface serves to guide useful actions, not to resemble truth. Indeed, an interface hides the truth; for someone editing a paper or photo, seeing transistors and firmware is an irrelevant hindrance. For the perceptions of H. sapiens, space-time is the desktop and physical objects are the icons. Our perceptions of space-time and objects have been shaped by natural selection to hide the truth and guide adaptive behaviors. Perception is an adaptive interface.

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Current models of visual perception typically assume that human vision estimates true properties of physical objects, properties that exist even if unperceived. However, recent studies of perceptual evolution, using evolutionary games and genetic algorithms, reveal that natural selection often drives true perceptions to extinction when they compete with perceptions tuned to fitness rather than truth: Perception guides adaptive behavior; it does not estimate a preexisting physical truth. Moreover, shifting from evolutionary biology to quantum physics, there is reason to disbelieve in preexisting physical truths: Certain interpretations of quantum theory deny that dynamical properties of physical objects have definite values when unobserved. In some of these interpretations the observer is fundamental, and wave functions are compendia of subjective probabilities, not preexisting elements of physical reality. These two considerations, from evolutionary biology and quantum physics, suggest that current models of object perception require fundamental reformulation. Here we begin such a reformulation, starting with a formal model of consciousness that we call a "conscious agent." We develop the dynamics of interacting conscious agents, and study how the perception of objects and space-time can emerge from such dynamics. We show that one particular object, the quantum free particle, has a wave function that is identical in form to the harmonic functions that characterize the asymptotic dynamics of conscious agents; particles are vibrations not of strings but of interacting conscious agents. This allows us to reinterpret physical properties such as position, momentum, and energy as properties of interacting conscious agents, rather than as preexisting physical truths. We sketch how this approach might extend to the perception of relativistic quantum objects, and to classical objects of macroscopic scale.

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Marr proposed that human vision constructs "a true description of what is there". He argued that to understand human vision one must discover the features of the world it recovers and the constraints it uses in the process. Bayesian decision theory (BDT) is used in modem vision research as a probabilistic framework for understanding human vision along the lines laid out by Marr. Marr's contribution to vision research is substantial and justly influential. We propose, however, that evolution by natural selection does not, in general, favor perceptions that are true descriptions of the objective world. Instead, research with evolutionary games shows that perceptual systems tuned solely to fitness routinely outcompete those tuned to truth. Fitness functions depend not just on the true state of the world, but also on the organism, its state, and the type of action. Thus, fitness and truth are distinct. Natural selection depends only on expected fitness. It shapes perceptual systems to guide fitter behavior, not to estimate truth. To study perception in an evolutionary context, we introduce the framework of Computational Evolutionary Perception (CEP). We show that CEP subsumes BDT, and reinterprets BDT as evaluating expected fitness rather than estimating truth.

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Does natural selection favor veridical perceptions, those that more accurately depict the objective environment? Students of perception often claim that it does. But this claim, though influential, has not been adequately tested. Here we formalize the claim and a few alternatives. To test them, we introduce "interface games," a class of evolutionary games in which perceptual strategies compete. We explore, in closed-form solutions and Monte Carlo simulations, some simpler games that assume frequency-dependent selection and complete mixing in infinite populations. We find that veridical perceptions can be driven to extinction by non-veridical strategies that are tuned to utility rather than objective reality. This suggests that natural selection need not favor veridical perceptions, and that the effects of selection on sensory perception deserve further study.

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Studies of biological motion have identified specialized neural machinery for the perception of human actions. Our experiments examine behavioral and neural responses to novel, articulating and non-human 'biological motion'. We find that non-human actions are seen as animate, but do not convey body structure when viewed as point-lights. Non-human animations fail to engage the human STSp, and neural responses in pITG, ITS and FFA/FBA are reduced only for the point-light versions. Our results suggest that STSp is specialized for human motion and ventral temporal regions support general, dynamic shape perception. We also identify a region in ventral temporal cortex 'selective' for non-human animations, which we suggest processes novel, dynamic objects.

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The possibility of spectrum inversion has been debated since it was raised by and is still discussed because of its implications for functionalist theories of conscious experience (e.g., Palmer, 1999). This paper provides a mathematical formulation of the question of spectrum inversion and proves that such inversions, and indeed bijective scramblings of color in general, are logically possible. Symmetries in the structure of color space are, for purposes of the proof, irrelevant. The proof entails that conscious experiences are not identical with functional relations. It leaves open the empirical possibility that functional relations might, at least in part, be causally responsible for generating conscious experiences. Functionalists can propose causal accounts that meet the normal standards for scientific theories, including numerical precision and novel prediction; they cannot, however, claim that, because functional relationships and conscious experiences are identical, any attempt to construct such causal theories entails a category error.

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We analyze the properties of a dynamic color-spreading display created by adding narrow colored flanks to rigidly moving black lines where these lines fall in the interior of a stationary virtual disk. This recently introduced display (Wollschläger et al, 2001 Perception 30 1423-1426) induces the perception of a colored transparent disk bounded by strong illusory contours. It provides a link between the classical neon-color-spreading effect and edge-induced color spreading as discussed by Pinna et al (2001 Vision Research 41 2669-2676). We performed three experiments to quantitatively study (i) the enhancing influence of apparent motion; (ii) the degrading effect of small spatial discontinuities (gaps) between lines and flanks; and (iii) the spatial extent of the color spreading. We interpret the results as due to varying degrees of objecthood of the dynamically specified disk: increased objecthood leads to increased surface visibility in both contour and color.

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What strategies does human vision use to attend to faces and their features? How are such strategies altered by 2-D inversion or photographic negation? We report two experiments in which these questions were studied with the flicker task of the change-blindness literature. In experiment 1 we studied detection of configural changes to the eyes or mouth, and found that upright faces receive more efficient attention than inverted faces, and that faces shown with normal contrast receive more efficient attention than faces shown in photographic negative. Moreover, eyes receive greater attention than the mouth. In experiment 2 we studied detection of local changes to the eyes or mouth, and found the same results. It is well known that inversion and negation impair the perception and recognition of faces. The experiments presented here extend previous findings by showing that inversion and negation also impair attention to faces.

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