Scientist proposes radical new theory of consciousness – and it rules out AI becoming conscious in the future

Human consciousness is one of the strangest and most mysterious phenomena in the universe, but one scientist says it may be even stranger than we think.

According to a new and radical theory, consciousness is not just an emotion that accompanies our actions; This is why humans are so successful as a species.

Professor Igor Rudan, Co-Director of the Center for Global Health at the University of Edinburgh, claims that this elusive part of our experience has evolved to ‘simulate alternative futures’.

According to this approach, being intentional is key to every choice you make, from deciding when to cross the road to pursuing your wildest dreams.

Professor Rudan told the Daily Mail that one of the purposes of consciousness is to ‘constantly generate, evaluate and prioritize ideas’.

He adds: ‘This allows some of the ‘visionaries’ among us who have learned to skillfully use the brain’s ‘sense of ideas’ to achieve remarkable success in their careers.

‘It has also enabled all of humanity to achieve some almost incredible feats that no other species has achieved, such as visiting the Moon.’

But this bold new theory also means artificial intelligence (AI) can never be conscious.

Consciousness is the ability to be aware of yourself and the world around you, what it feels like to have thoughts, emotions, and experiences.

Although many neuroscientists have tried to ask what it actually is, an even bigger question may be: ‘Why are we conscious?’

Physicist and health data scientist from the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Steven Kerr explains that consciousness is what scientists call “evolutionarily expensive.”

‘It requires significant metabolic and computational resources, which raises the question of what adaptive advantage could justify this cost,’ Dr Kerr told the Daily Mail.

This is even more surprising if we consider that consciousness is essentially a passive, extra emotion that floats above our experiences and actions without doing anything about it.

Professor Rudan’s solution is that consciousness is actually critical to our survival and success as a species.

According to this theory, our brain is actually a sensory organ in itself, but the brain is finely tuned to perceive ideas rather than light or sound.

Professor Rudan says: ‘At any given moment, the conscious mind is faced with many competing possibilities: where to direct attention, whether to cooperate or compete with others, whether to take risks or remain cautious, what to say or do next.

Scientists have suggested that consciousness evolved to help organisms navigate the world. Therefore, octopuses’ advanced problem-solving skills are a strong indication that they may be conscious.

‘From this perspective, consciousness allows us to do more than passively observe the world; We can actively explore possibilities and choose among them.’

For example, imagine you are playing a game of chess; On your turn, there are thousands of possible moves, each linked to thousands of sequences and outcomes.

What consciousness allows us to do is to internally ‘simulate’ each of these possible futures and evaluate each one.

However, unlike a computer that simply calculates the best move, your conscious subjective experience plays an important role in the move you ultimately make.

Maybe you desperately want to win to impress someone, or you don’t want to hurt your opponent’s feelings, or you want to practice a certain set of moves so you can get better in future games.

Professor Rudan argues that when you visualize options, your conscious brain compares different futures based on their feasibility, potential rewards, and how they make you feel.

In this way, consciousness helps us choose between alternative ideas about the future and translate our plans and desires into action.

More importantly, this may explain why consciousness evolved in the first place.

However, this theory means that artificial intelligences such as Skynet in Terminator cannot be conscious in the same way as humans.

Professor Rudan says: ‘The remarkable advantage of this process is that it allows us to “learn” the consequences of our actions in our inner world, without having to experience them in the outer world.

‘The most important evolutionary advantage will always be the same: reducing the uncertainty of all possible future states by exploring internally.’

But what makes this theory even stranger is that it suggests that consciousness may be a more fundamental part of the universe than we expect.

For example, the time and space we experience may arise from consciousness’ need to organize events and simulate outcomes.

Dr Kerr explains that some theories in physics suggest that the fundamental structure of space-time is not a ‘river’ or time flowing forward, but connections between cause and effect.

‘Once one shifts attention from space-time itself to causal structure, it becomes natural to ask how physical agents embedded in such a structure represent and use it,’ he says.

‘The common line of thought is that consciousness can be, at least in part, a tool for understanding causal relationships. ‘This could enable conscious beings to simulate alternative futures and choose actions that will lead to desired outcomes.’

Since this capacity evolved to help organisms survive in a dangerous world, it is natural that we find other conscious creatures in the animal kingdom. In fact, a striking implication of this theory is that consciousness can come into existence gradually depending on the animal’s ability to simulate the future.

A wild consequence of this theory is that our perceptions of spacetime itself (the signified) can be produced by consciousness, while attempting to provide a framework for evaluating the causal connections of future events.

Although octopuses show complex planning abilities that indicate a near-human level of consciousness, rats or mice may have the same capacity to a lesser degree.

This also has some big implications for the question of whether AI might one day be conscious like humans.

Although computers can calculate possible future states, they still lack the extra level of conscious experience that makes some ideas more appealing than others.

Professor Rudan says: ‘If consciousness depends only on sufficiently complex information processing and simulations of possible future states, advanced artificial intelligence already has these capabilities.

‘But for humans subjective experience seems to be an irreducible component of consciousness.

‘If this component, which is deeply connected to our emotions, does not emerge in AI, then AI can remain extremely intelligent despite humans becoming conscious.’