From: J <[email protected]> To: Subject: Re: Neil and other things Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2018 11:41:33 +0000 read the paper. , lets skype today On Wed, Dec 12, 2018 at 2:48 AM Bach, Joscha < > wrote: Dear Jeffrey, I think you are right: Neil and me share a lot of interests. I am curious where that leads, and expect that we will talk again, especially about digital psychology. The meeting with Elizabeth Koch and her crowd was quite fascinating. Her taste in funding scientists is a bit less discerning than yours, but I enjoyed Anil Seth and Guilio Tononi. Tononi is an autonomous intellect masquerading as a decently successful neuroscientist. The core ideas of his Integrated Information Theory of consciousness have never actually been published, which means that his followers (including Christof Koch and Max Tegmark) don't follow a complete theory but his personality. Before I met him, I did not understand why IIT is a bit of a cult. He is sharp, with the demeanor of an austere Catholic priest, and has come up with a perspective on consciousness that is actually new and original, which means that it is almost certainly wrong, but I think that unlike the pleasant Stu Hameroff he really cares about getting things right. (In case you are interested in the topic, I include a paper that got accepted for the AAAI spring symposium on machine consciousness.) Elizabeth Koch seems to struggle with the horrible plight of being born into royalty, and tries to escape the moral guilt of undeserved riches by diligently seeking approval from others. She played the role of spiritual life coach at her event, supported by an impressive African ex child soldier, and Joan Borysenko's superstitious promises of salvation through epigenetics and microbiome. I have great sympathy for Elizabeth, but she seems to be confused. I wish she could accept what she's born into and actually do something with it (like creating the life or world she wants for herself); she seems to