Symbol manipulation, spatial manipulation, imagination, prediction?
also called:
stuck at:
confidence:
my lines
- The calculation on the blackboard in the head. State change under grounded rules?
- Imagining, inside the head
- Layer 2 — thinking and acting. Not under my control. External simulation.
- Layer 3 — simulation on the workbench in the head (the grounding game). My own internal simulation.
- The workbench in the head — what about a blind person?
- Translating English into Korean, in my head
- Head
- Analysing the neurons inside the brain
- The rules I compute with in my head, written as code
- And the brain activity while computing — as the computer’s hardware? (which is also code? layer 2) When it resolves (a drive to ground? to anchor?), dopamine comes and it gets nailed into behaviour?
- Anchored… released → dopamine. That part is layer 2.
from the AI
[AI] And the real role of the notebook —
it is an extension of the blackboard.
The workbench in your head holds five or six slots at most. A notebook is unlimited and doesn’t vanish.
That’s how you get to handle complicated things. You can’t do calculus without paper.
Putting layer 3 outside makes the workbench bigger.
[AI] Conscious without layer 3:
just before sleep — vague, but something is felt
lost in music — no computing, but there is experience
pain — it hurts, nothing is being turned over
spacing out — consciousness is on, the workbench is empty
Consciousness present. Layer 3 absent.
Layer 3 present but consciousness dim:
solving a problem while asleep — you wake up and the answer is there
arriving while daydreaming at the wheel — the route was computed, there’s no memory of it
the shower insight — it kept running, it just wasn’t in consciousness
The computation happened; consciousness wasn’t watching it.
So the relation is roughly: layer 3 ⊂ consciousness. Layer 3 happens inside consciousness, but consciousness is not only layer 3.
Consciousness is far wider — sensation, mood, pain, background feel, all of it. Layer 3 is one corner of the workbench.
Why they feel alike: when we picture consciousness, we picture layer 3. Ask “what is consciousness?” and you naturally picture thinking and judging — but that is only its conspicuous part.