Emergence of Awareness and Intelligence

(needs to be updated!) (Amardeo Sarma has taken notes)

Working definition:

Global (emergent) awareness is the selective amplification and broadcasting of information that is important for the system as a whole. It implies collecting the information sensed by all the components (agents) of the system, and then filtering out of all information that has only local relevance to the agent. The remaining, globally important information must then be made available (broadcasted) to all the agents, so that they can all make use of it to guide their actions.

Examples:

• the "global workspace" in the brain, where subconscious stimuli are made conscious by selective amplification (Stanislas Dehaene and Bernard Baars)
• swarm conciousness: one or a few birds sense a predator. Their reaction triggers a reaction from the swarm as a whole: all fly away at the same time and in the same direction
• quorum sensing in SO systems (e.g. via cellular automata rule 184): via local interactions, the system eventually finds out the majority position among its agents
• emergency handling: some agents detect either a danger (e.g. fire, intrusion), some detect a possible solution (e.. safe exit). This information needs to be made available to all agents collectively
• awareness of global state in SOS: measure developed by Hermann de Meer

Determinants of Importance

• relevance to task/goals of the system
• unexpectedness of information
• intensity/size: number of agents that independently sensed that information