http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Watch-A-Thousand-Micro-Robots-Self-Assemble-Into-Wild-Shapes-TechCrunch-tp7585585p7585589.html
Gee, Nick. Since consciousness studies are the next big thing, you guys are really on the front lines. As a member of the Lindisfarne Fellowship, I've been dialoging about this stuff with my fellow Lindisfarnians for years. We haven't gotten very far, but its been fun. Stu Kauffman, by the way, is also a Lindisfarne Fellow, as is Ralph Abraham, so the chaos and complexity paradigm, along with lots of biology (Lynn Margulis, also a Fellow and good friend, is sadly missed) is quite often blended in an exciting and imaginative way into discussions that are quite esoteric. Lindisfarne has disbanded for a time, but it appears now to be temporary.
Try this on for size from Bill Thompson's book "Coming into Being: Articles and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness." ( Bill is the founder of the Lindisfarne Association.) How does the self emerge in self-organization? is one of the questions we discussed at length.
"Varela liked to distinguish between primary consciousness--the consciousness of the animal--and the reflexive consciousness that generates an awareness of selfhood...(we then have) the emergent condition of the ego or the self....Buddhism presents a developmental model of the evolution of consciousness, from form (spirochete) to feeling (cyanobacterium) to perception (nematode) to dispositional attitudes (slug) to primary consciousness (animal) to reflective self-consciousness (human)....(From there) we can define consciousness as 'the dynamical state-space of the perceptual system.'"
Bill is describing a self-organizing system that orchestrates all of the senses together to change the initial conditions, allowing for the emergence of self-consciousness. He also understands the ongoing debate among Buddhists and non-Buddhists concerning the reality of the self--but let's leave that for another time.
Hope you are having a great summer. I'm spending most of the summer writing at our house on San Juan Island.
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College