To this list I would absolutely add Julian Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind."
simulations of conscious thought entirely via prediction language tokens
Jaynes goes so far as to assert that language generates consciousness, which is characterized by (amongst other features) its narrative structure, as well as its production of a metaphor of our selves that can inhabit a spatiotemporal mental space that serves as an analog for the physical world; the mental space where we imagine potential actions, play with ideas, predict future outcomes, and analyze concepts prior to taking action in the "real, actual" world.
The generation of metaphors is inextricably linked to the psychotechnology (to pull a word from vocabulary discussed by John Vervaeke in his "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" series) of language, which is the means by which one object can be described and elaborated by its similarity to another. As an etymological example: the Sanskrit word "bhu" which means "to grow" forms the basis of the modern English verb "to be," but predates lofty abstract notions such as that of "being," "ontology," or "existence." It's from the known and the familiar (plant or animal growth) that we can reach out into the unknown and the unfamiliar (the concept of being), using (psycho-)technologies such as language to extend our cognition in the same way a hammer or a bicycle extends our body.
There is something here about language being the substrate of thought, and perhaps even consciousness in general as Jaynes would seem to assert in Book I of his 1976 work, where he spends a considerable amount of time discussing metaphor and language in connection to his definition of "consciousness."
There are also questions of "intentionality" and whether or not computers and their internal representations can actually be "about" something in the way that our language and our ideas can be "about" something in the physical (or even ideal) world that we want to discuss. Searle and the "Chinese room" argument come to mind.
Turing famously dodged this question in his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" by substituting what is now called the "Turing test" in lieu of answering the question of whether or not "machines" can "think" (whatever those two words actually mean).
Comments
To this list I would absolutely add Julian Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind."
Jaynes goes so far as to assert that language generates consciousness, which is characterized by (amongst other features) its narrative structure, as well as its production of a metaphor of our selves that can inhabit a spatiotemporal mental space that serves as an analog for the physical world; the mental space where we imagine potential actions, play with ideas, predict future outcomes, and analyze concepts prior to taking action in the "real, actual" world.
The generation of metaphors is inextricably linked to the psychotechnology (to pull a word from vocabulary discussed by John Vervaeke in his "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" series) of language, which is the means by which one object can be described and elaborated by its similarity to another. As an etymological example: the Sanskrit word "bhu" which means "to grow" forms the basis of the modern English verb "to be," but predates lofty abstract notions such as that of "being," "ontology," or "existence." It's from the known and the familiar (plant or animal growth) that we can reach out into the unknown and the unfamiliar (the concept of being), using (psycho-)technologies such as language to extend our cognition in the same way a hammer or a bicycle extends our body.
There is something here about language being the substrate of thought, and perhaps even consciousness in general as Jaynes would seem to assert in Book I of his 1976 work, where he spends a considerable amount of time discussing metaphor and language in connection to his definition of "consciousness."
There are also questions of "intentionality" and whether or not computers and their internal representations can actually be "about" something in the way that our language and our ideas can be "about" something in the physical (or even ideal) world that we want to discuss. Searle and the "Chinese room" argument come to mind.
Turing famously dodged this question in his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" by substituting what is now called the "Turing test" in lieu of answering the question of whether or not "machines" can "think" (whatever those two words actually mean).
The recent discussion of Helen Keller[1] and her description of learning the meaning of "I", strongly backs this assertion, on my opinion.
I read her words as implying that you can't have consciousness without self identity.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40466814