Press Release

Neuroscience System Engineers Recreate the
Consciousness-Generating Mechanism (CM)

The design of self-conscious-robots.

Maui Hawaii based MCon Inc. announced the discovery of the long sought after correlate of consciousness circuit in the brain. The circuit, known as a Consciousness-generating Mechanism (CM) always has a conscious sensation correlated with it. In the past, this so called “neuronal correlate of consciousness circuit” has been sought by neurobiologists by investigating the brain-operation of the visual system. The Machine Consciousness Inc. scientists discovered the CM by reverse engineering the biological tactile sensory system, and then finding that the CM is also applicable to all sensory systems in the human body (Including the visual system).

The significance of this discovery is that it opens the door to the design of “self-conscious” humanoid robots and to a technical understanding of how conscious sensation and emotions operate in the human brain.

A self conscious robotic model of the human body and brain was presented at the conference. The robotic system, trained to perform itch-scratch type actions, may also be trained as a multitasking obstacle avoiding, volitional robot that walks, digs ditches, delivers mail, and even plays sports.

The self conscious robotic model is controlled by a robotic controller, called a Relational Robotic Controller (RRC-patent granted 2003), and is based on a reverse engineering study of the evolutionary adaptation of the human brain. A RRC controlled robot may be designed to be an emotionally motivated robot that can feel, see, hear, and speak. It may be designed to “learn” from the environment and gain experiential knowledge and a super human-like intelligence.

Potential applications resulting from the RRC technology span a wide array of disciplines, ranging from the medical to the philosophical. The technology and applications may be viewed at the MCon website www.mcon.org. For example, in the medical field, operation of the emotional motivational system helps solve the problem of how the mind works, the physiological structure of the brain, the hedonic factor in physical and mental health.

In cognitive neural science the RRC technology helps solve problems relating to the connectedness of the central nervous system, and the connectedness of the visual system to the brain. It also contributes to philosophical studies of the mind body problem and to evolutionary biology and sociobiology. MCon Inc. publishes special journals, the Machine Consciousness Technical & Philosophical Journals (MCTJ and MCPJ) that are devoted to the broad ranging multi-disciplinary applications of the RRC-technology (see www.mcon.org).

Developed by retired TRW space physicist and USC professor Dr. Alan Rosen, and robotic engineer and inventor David B. Rosen, the technology takes a radically different approach to solving the “consciousness” puzzle. Human and animal behavior as well as the body and brain of all species is assumed to be a Darwinian adaptation guided by natural selection and aimed at Darwinian survival. “Consciousness” and “emotions” are assumed to be survival mechanisms that have been designed into biological creatures, mechanisms that have never before been designed into a machine. The approach of reverse engineering is applied to the “consciousness” and “emotional” mechanism by studying the contribution that those mechanisms make to the Darwinian survival of organisms.

More information: The consciousness mechanism was designed into the RRC as a perceptive mechanism of the Darwinian search engine that searches the external environment for environmental contingencies. The mechanism permits the organism to “perceive” (see, feel, hear, smell or taste) benign patterns in the environment. (Observations of patterns or things in the environment that do NOT impact the Darwinian survival of the organism, or observations that are NOT environmental contingencies). The “consciousness” circuit designed by MCon Inc, operates as a “recording monitor” in the brain and is part of the Darwinian search engine. The benign patterns are detected by the “recording monitor” in the brain as a sensory perception. The sentience associated with the pattern is a subjective experience that is called “seeing”, feeling, hearing, smelling, and tasting.

The emotional mechanism was designed into the RRC as a mechanism of the Darwinian search engine operating in the motivational system (in the brain), for identifying and prioritizing environmental contingencies that are recorded as sensory pattern on the perceptive “consciousness” circuit. The mechanism operates by the mechanism proposed by William James, father of modern psychology: It “upsets” the equilibrium operation of the autonomic system of the body. (e. g. Increased heart rate, loss of bladder control, tightness of chest and involuntary changes the body’s somatic motor system such as changes in facial expression, upset breathing rate, etc) This “upset” is detected by the “recording monitor” in the brain as an emotional perception. The sentience associated with the detected “upset” is a subjective experience that constitutes the emotion. Emotional subjective experiences run the gamut of excruciating pain, terror, fear, pain, tactile pressure and heat (negative), calm (zero), contentment (positive), tactile and heat (massage), pleasure (food, shelter, mating, security (defensive), and bodily maintenance (health).

The complete reverse engineered design of a motivational system in the brain driven by the pleasure-pain mechanism (the hedonic factor). This design leads to a mechanistic solution to the mind-body problem. For the first time in the history of science MCon Inc. has closed the functional loop between the “hedonic” motivational system in the brain, the somatic musculature system controlled via the voluntary nervous system, and the autonomic system controlled via the involuntary nervous system.

The operation of the hedonic factor (pleasure-pain mechanism) is a mechanism that has never before been designed into a machine. The hedonic factor, in the motivational system in the brain operates as an emotional “drive” that “urges” the organism to perform the tasks of the Darwinian hierarchical task diagram- with Darwinian survival at the top of the hierarchy. (For example the urge to urinate) The hedonic factor allows an organism to identify and prioritize “environmental contingency” patterns that are recorded on the “conscious” recording monitor as benign observations. The priority level is a function of the “emotional upset” that is caused by the “environmental contingency” pattern. The organism must learn to associate the priority level of the emotional “upset” with those tasks that enhance the survival of the organism.

The complete reverse engineered design of a Pavlovian learning and memory system in the brain leads to the development of an ultra-intelligent robot that can gain knowledge from experiential operation in the environment: Procedural and associative memory and Pavlovian “learning” is built into a neural network pattern recognition circuit of the RRC motivational system. The “emotional” factor is an essential element in the learning process: “All animals that exhibit associative conditioning, from snails to humans, seem to learn by detecting environmental contingencies rather than detecting the simple contiguity of a conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus.” (See Principles of Neural Science, Kandel et. al. and Kupfermann 1991).

MCon Inc. will also be presenting its work at the 13th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, Oct. 3-6 2006 Hong Kong