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Time of India
29-04-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Consciousness: The old mystery at the heart of the new AI age
Ravi Singh is an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer who takes a keen interest in technology and philosophy. Before joining the civil services, he has worked in consulting roles with EY and KPMG. He is also a TED speaker and a sports enthusiast. (Views expressed on the blog are personal). LESS ... MORE As AI surges ahead and concerns grow about machines becoming conscious, the mystery of consciousness has jumped from dusty philosophy books into everyday conversations. Once the private playground of philosophers and mystics, it has now become the greatest unsolved puzzle in science — and perhaps the key to understanding both ourselves and the machines we create. Consciousness is ever-present, at least during our waking time. It is what accompanies all our subjective experiences – the redness of the sun we experience during a sunset or the unpleasant sound of honking at a traffic signal. Yet, we have absolutely no idea how it works. The real problem isn't just finding an explanation of how consciousness happens. We don't even know what a good explanation would look like. Australian philosopher David Chalmers captured this perfectly by calling it the 'hard problem of consciousness.' To understand the 'hard problem,' it's important to grasp the 'easy problems.' Neuroscientists map neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) — brain activities linked to specific experiences. For instance, a toothache activates certain neural circuits in the brain. Despite its name, the 'easy problem' isn't easy, but substantial progress has been made in mapping NCCs in the recent decades. Back in 1998, renowned neuroscientist Christof Koch and Chalmers made a friendly bet. Koch believed scientists would uncover a specific NCC within 25 years. Chalmers wagered against it. In 2023, Koch conceded defeat, gifting Chalmers a case of fine wine. Koch remarked, 'In twenty-five years, we have mapped the brain, but the mystery of consciousness remains unsolved.' The 'hard problem' asks — why do brain processes result in subjective experiences like blueness of sky or the joy of watching a sunrise? Knowing which neurons fire when we taste chocolate is one thing, explaining why it tastes delightful is another. A deep 'understanding gap' remains between physical processes and subjective experience. Modern science approaches this bottom-up, assuming matter is fundamental and consciousness emerges from it. But thinkers like Philip Goff and B. Alan Wallace challenge this view. They argue consciousness is primary — all knowledge of matter comes through conscious experience. Explaining consciousness through matter might just be circular logic. Roger Penrose, a Nobel Lareate in physics said 'I argue that the phenomenon of consciousness cannot be accommodated within the framework of present-day physical theory.' So, if studying matter won't reveal consciousness, is understanding it even possible? Thankfully, ancient Indian and Tibetan traditions developed rigorous methods for studying consciousness by turning their attention inward. Over centuries, rich schools of thought have emerged. Two beautiful traditions stand out: Advaita Vedanta and Dzogchen Buddhism. Advaita Vedanta: Dreaming while awake Advaita Vedanta teaches that there is only one true reality – pure consciousness, called Brahman. The world around us is like a dream, known as Maya. The individual self, or Atman, is also pure consciousness. According to Advaita, mind or consciousness is the only true reality — a monistic view, unlike dualism, which sees both mind and matter as real. Modern science is also monistic, but it claims only matter is real. It sees mind as emerging when matter becomes complex, like the brain producing thoughts. Advaita flips this idea, mind comes first, and matter is a projection of mind like dreaming of mountains and rivers. They seem real, but when you wake up, you realize they were just mind-creations. Imagine dreaming you are standing on a high cliff, heart racing with fear. Upon waking, you realize there was no cliff, only your mind. Similarly, Advaita says the world seems real only until we recognize deeper truth. Dzogchen Buddhism: Recognizing the Open Sky The Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism offers a similar but powerful approach. Its goal is recognizing Rigpa — a pristine, sky-like awareness beyond thoughts and perceptions. It is a state where the distinction between subject and object dissolves into oneness. Like Advaita, it is rooted in non-dualism. Practice of Trekchö ('cutting through rigidity') helps practitioners see mental events as fleeting and transparent. It is considered one of the quickest ways to glimpse non-duality as it aims to cutting through the mental conceptions quickly and recognizing Rigpa. Practices like Samatha (calm abiding) and Vipassana (insight meditation) can help prepare the mind for this direct recognition but they are not necessary. Thus consciousness can be understood by recognising it through direct experience compared to some intellectual theorization. A scene from The Matrix captures this spirit perfectly. When Neo asks how he will know he is 'The One,' the Oracle tells him, 'Being The One is just like being in love — you just know it.' Renowned consciousness researcher Giulio Tononi echoes the sentiment by saying, 'Consciousness becomes a matter of 'being' rather than 'doing'.' As machines mimic more and more of our behaviour, the risk is not just that we build conscious robots but that we forget what it truly means to be conscious ourselves. In a world rushing forward on the wheels of AI, perhaps the ancient quest to understand consciousness is not a relic of the past but a survival guide for the future. To know consciousness, not just study it, but live it, may turn out to be our greatest act of wisdom. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Local Italy
29-03-2025
- Automotive
- Local Italy
Inside Italy: How bad are Italy's taxi shortages and will things ever improve?
Inside Italy is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip from Italy that you might not have heard about. It's published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article. If there's one thing about Italy that international residents and frequent visitors to the country often complain about, it's taxis. Long queues and interminable waiting times when trying to hail a ride are far from uncommon, especially in popular tourist destinations and major cities such as Rome, Milan and Naples. The problem is anything but new. News reports of holidaymakers and residents having to wait well over an hour for a taxi ride have figured extensively in both national and international media in recent years. In June 2023, Italy's newspaper of record Il Corriere della Sera described the state of taxi services in the country as 'chaos', citing 'extremely long queues at stations and airports' and 'endless waiting times on the phone'. Nearly two years on, the situation seems to be largely the same. There were tensions in Milan in late February after Milan Fashion Week operators warned that taxis were 'nowhere to be found'. More recently, critical taxi shortages have also been reported in Monza, Lombardy, and Bologna, Emilia Romagna. Why are taxis so hard to find in Italy? The situation is mostly attributable to local authorities not issuing new taxi licences for years or, at times, decades. According to news site Wired, Naples, which currently has 2,364 taxis (around 25 for every 10,000 residents), hasn't issued new licences since 1997. But the long-standing 'taxi drought' in the Campanian city pales in comparison to that seen in Genoa, Liguria, and Livorno, Tuscany, whose authorities haven't granted new licenze since 1980 and 1977 respectively. As for Rome, the city hasn't issued new licences since 2004 (though 1,000 should be assigned at some point this year following a 'historic' public tender last year) At present, there are 7,838 taxis in the capital – that's around 35 for every 10,000 residents. For context, London has some 19,000 taxis (106 vehicles per 10,000 residents) while Paris has 18,500 (nearly 90 per 10,000 residents). If at this point you're wondering why most Italian cities haven't issued new licences in years, especially considering how frequent complaints about queues and long waits are, the answer largely lies in the power of Italy's taxi driver associations. The Italian taxi driver lobby – which is regarded as one of Europe's most powerful lobby groups – has long successfully opposed any change to the status quo, blocking local authorities' attempts to issue new licences and hindering central government efforts to open up the sector to competitors. Over the years, drivers have staged mass protests and have even resorted to violence to demand stringent restrictions on private-hire vehicles (NCCs) and maintain their monopoly. "When they mobilise, their ability to paralyse politics is evident," Matteo Hallisey, from the centrist +Europa party, told Euractiv. refer to it as a 'mafia'. So will things ever improve? There were signs that things could potentially be starting to change in 2023, when Italy's competition watchdog opened an investigation into the taxi sector following the emergence of "critical issues" in Rome, Milan and Naples. The watchdog said it had requested information on the number of active licences and pledged to "examine possible initiatives aimed at protecting consumers' amid reports of long waiting times. But the investigation didn't result in the shakeup many had hoped for, with the competition body only issuing a series of non-legally-binding recommendations to raise the number of available taxi licences. Both Rome and Milan have since decided to issue new licences. Milan started issuing the first of 450 new licences earlier this year, while Rome is set to grant 1,000 new licences by the end of the year. However, the scale of the planned additions is often believed to be too small to bring about any significant changes. According to Nicola Zaccheo, president of Italy's transport regulation authority ART, Rome's move to add 1,000 taxis will only scratch the surface, as the city would need 'over 2,000' additional cabs to solve its shortages. Similarly, the 450 additional licenses planned for Milan are 'not enough' and people will continue facing 'enormous problems when looking for a taxi' in the coming months, according to Andrea Giuricin, a professor of Transport Economics at the University of Milan-Bicocca. As a final point, Italy's current government is unlikely to back any major proposals to liberalise and deregulate the taxi sector. Both Brothers of Italy and the League sided with taxi drivers when then-PM Mario Draghi unsuccessfully tried to open up the market to competitors in 2022. Last year, League leader and Deputy PM Matteo Salvini signed off on a round of stringent new rules for NCC drivers, including the requirement to observe a 20-minute waiting period between rides. Lazio's TAR Tribunal later suspended the enforcement of the new requirement after deeming it unlawful.
