Conscious Intelligent Systems - Part 1 : I X I

Preface " This work contains hardly any original facts in regard to man; but as the conclusions at which I arrived, after drawing up a rough draft, appeared to me interesting, I thought that they might interest others… The conclusion that man is the co-descendant with other species of some ancient, lower, and extinct form is not in any degree new. "-Charles Darwin – The Descent of Man Questions about the human mind and consciousness are old questions, possibly man's oldest. What is consciousness? What is mind? Who am I? The trend of the moment is to look towards the natural sciences for help in breaking the brain-mind-consciousness lock. It may look foolhardy and unseasonable for someone at this point to take an old-fashioned logical hypothesis based look at these problems. And when such an approach originates from first principles, it can look nothing less than quixotic. However this is what we have set ourselves to do, we take here a first principles, learning system perspective to these problems, perhaps for once last time. Let us start tilting at windmills. The brain and the computer may not be similar, but no one disagrees with the proposition that natural entities are also learning systems. One can see that if natural entities are learning systems, then such systems need to follow some kind of logical design or design path. Is it possible to unravel the design paths of natural learning systems? Here we make an effort, a humbler one sans modern tools, and see if we can derive a logical learning-system-based explanation for the rise and presence of mind, our sense of I, and its relation to consciousness. To that aim, let us leave aside the beaten track. Rather than undertake a detailed study of natural intelligence systems, let us do a simpler thought experiment. Let us assume that nature started off with a simple learning system. Lets us then ask, in tribute to Simon's ant, what kind of learning conditions could have possibly given rise to mind and consciousness. Such a thought experiment and its mapping to the natural world and to humans does give rise to some interesting possibilities, and can allow for a more coherent and natural explanation for natural intelligence system phenomena. Let us take a brief overview.