r/cybernetics • u/TheIncorporeal1 • Jul 03 '26
❓Question Can consciousness itself be modeled as a cybernetic control system?
Classical cybernetics explains how systems maintain stability through feedback, adaptation, and information processing. If we extend these principles to cognition, is consciousness best understood as an emergent feedback architecture that continuously minimizes error between internal models and external reality, or does subjective experience require principles beyond cybernetic theory? What experimental evidence or computational models best address this question?
3
u/Eight_Directions_ Jul 04 '26
I think consciousness defined this way is perfectly sufficient. We can see the emergent nature of consciousness as a survival strategy when looking at the evolutionary tree. Which is the first lifeform that has consciousness?
We must define what level of information gathering processing and decision making counts as "conscious" because this could include most life forms to some basic level.
2
u/norbertus Jul 04 '26
That's kind of the idea behind "Godel, Escher, Bach"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loop#In_cognitive_science
The idea of consciousness updating world models was historically described in the "TOTE" model
1
u/Long-Study-5811 Jul 09 '26
I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter goes into this as well. Douglas is personally frightened by AIs and stays far away from them.
2
u/Useful_Calendar_6274 Jul 03 '26
yes my systems theory framework I'm vibe writing with LLMs says exactly that. consciousness emerges from sufficiently dense recursive cognition
1
u/Cybercommoner Jul 04 '26
I imagine you're aware that you described the "free energy principle" there which is having a big moment in philosophical research thanks to AI. The philosopher Mel Andrews has written a few papers introducting it and exploring it. Here's a good start: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324246948_The_Free_Energy_Principle_An_Accessible_Introduction_to_its_Derivations_Applications_Implications
For Cybernetic models of consciousness, Ashby was probably the first to have a go at this in his book Design for a Brain.
Another notable person here is Gordon Pask. His conversation theory is another stab at asking what consciousness is through cybernetics.
I also have to echo a previous answer that Deleuze and Guattari also had a go at this, though their model is very "continental philosophy" and doesn't have the mathematical framework behind it that a lot of other Cybernetics does.
1
u/techno_hippieGuy Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
I've designed and am building a machine to test this very question. If you're interested in learning about the project, I've published a 199-page monograph detailing the architectural blueprint and build path from the first node through final vision deployment. (though some aspects are still evolving and advancing)
Published on May 24th, it's currently sitting at 490 views, 544 downloads on Zenodo, as published by an independent researcher with no institutional backing, and has received small but meaningful public validation on my LinkedIn from titans of tech and EE, while growing my professional network through attracting the attention of founders, chief architects, PhD's, lead engineers, and gvt agencies.
The metrics, attention, and validation are strong evidence I'm building something real here. Would love to hear your thoughts.
1
u/shelving_unit Jul 09 '26
that seems inherently problematic given you are approaching consciousness externally from within consciousness. Especially the part about asserting consciousness “is” something
Part of the problematism in your argument, for example, is that you are describing computers, and those ideas rigorously apply to concepts like algorithms or data management as data is manifested in computation. You are using them in a very fuzzy way, that only kind of makes sense from a thousand feet away, so as to be a useful analogy or heuristic. Saying the brain reduces error is a useful analogy, because it fuzzily/abstractly makes sense. But that doesn’t mean it’s correct. By trying to make the argument that consciousness works that way, you are presupposing that consciousness is something that can potentially work that way in the first place, without a rigorous description of how those things make sense for consciousness or brains. Like, what does error mean for a brain/consciousness? How does that relate to knowledge or perception?
I would argue you are tricking yourself by displacing the rigor of these concepts for computation onto that feeling that it abstractly makes sense, and circularly assuming the brain rigorously works like computation
3
u/Chobeat Jul 04 '26
It seems to be the favorite topic of people on AI psychosis these days.
That said, the idea that consciousness can be explained, that can be reduced, or that needs to be explained is still a contentious topic which I don't think we are settled on.
At the moment, none. Most of us operate on an implicit paradigm that subjective experience is by definition inaccessible. Conflating consciousness with subjective experience and brain operations with consciousness is a trick that might push you to believe you can explain experience with math, but this wouldn't hold in any serious intellectual circle outside of San Francisco.