Some recent research on machine consciousness
Such a synthetic approach to understanding of complex system can be seen as building upon the parent discipline of artificial intelligence (AI) but by more explicitly returning to its roots. Much AI now makes no pretence to be anything other than concerned with the artificing of useful tools. The field of MC by contrast is not content to model or build merely intelligent or "smart" systems that serve useful functions. Instead MC focuses on building systems whose architectures explicitly set-out to model human (or animal) minds. On this interpretation MC extends the general synthetic approach to the understanding of complex systems but seeks to extend it to that most complex system of all: the conscious mind.
MC researchers often take a few intuitive ideas (see for instance Aleksander's axioms) about what a conscious mind is like, or what properties it possesses, and attempt to build systems that can replicate these functions. The synthetic approach is seen as complementing forms of understanding based on more analytic means.
There is hope that this approach might also help clarify what we mean by consciousness and perhaps indirectly help us address the so-called hard problem. This hope helps explain the involvement of several philosophers in the MC community (so MC isn't just an engineering approach). Perhaps the use of synthetic techniques may eventually allow us to help clarify the concept of consciousness sufficiently to the point where we can shift the log-jam preventing a truly scientific approach to the subject, or perhaps show us why such an approach is impossible.
Below is a link to the online version of the journal where abstracts of the included articles can be downloaded.
Special Issue of JCS: HTM
The full text of the editorial introduction can also a link to the editorial introduction can be downloaded here: HTM
Fred the machine butterfly was constructed by artist Maren Danzglock and was supposed to accompany us to the first AISB conference on MC. Unfortunately Fred had an accident on the way to the conference ...
Fortunately we still have some images of Fred in all his glory and I'll be adding some more of these to this website when time allows.
Along with Steve Torrance and Ron Chrisley I have organised and produced two conferences for the AISB the proceedings of which are available online (listed below).
Much of the work in the JCS special issue was orginally presented at two AISB conferences. For the curious, the original intentions of these conferences is best represented by the orginal call for papers, which has some information about the background to the conference series, and also the article written to introduce the conference proceedings (pdf).
Clowes, R. W., Chrisley, R., & Torrance, S. (2006). Proceedings of the Symposium on Integrative Approaches to Machine Consciousness, AISB-06. Bristol: University of Bristol. (PDF)
Chrisley, R., Clowes, R. W., & Torrance, S. (2005). Next-generation approaches to machine consciousness. In R. Chrisley, R. W. Clowes & S. Torrance (Eds.), Proceedings of the AISB05 Symposium on Next Generation approaches to Machine Consciousness: Imagination, Development, Intersubjectivity, and Embodiment. (also available as Cognitive Science Research Paper 574 ftp://ftp.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/pub/reports/csrp/csrp574.pdf )
The editorial introduction to the first JCS special issue on Machine Consciousness edited by Owen Holland is also available here (HTM). Holland's website on MC can also be found here.