Quora user claims to have 'solved consciousness' via AGI theory?

Last time I checked, he's not exactly made a good name for himself online. Even the computationalists don't like him and think he's chatting nonsense. On Google Scholar, all he's written are harsh critiques of other people's essays that are short and unhelpful. No publications or anything of his own work, despite the fact that he claims he's been working in this since 2013! He's done nothing but make himself look like an idiot who shouldn't be taken seriously, especially since he doesn't apparently understand philosophy of mind or philosophy of science at all. He's been accused of conflating terms and misunderstanding the Hard Problem.

He refuses to give any evidence for his ideas or even just a coherent explanation, insisting it's confidential. He back-pedals frequently, and said that he's not even writing a paper, but what he does have is over a thousand pages long or something. He's only ever been in one interview which nobody was impressed by, given how he dances around questions posed to him and doesn't answer properly. His arrogance is unbearable. Case in point: he once said he thinks p-zombies and panpsychism can be disproven, displaying a gross misunderstanding of philosophy and the theories themselves. 

He also implies that he thinks he's already disproven God, life after death and the supernatural via knowledge theories (he never explains how) and that he won't release his work if Trump is re-elected, which is just a silly political excuse for him to delay publishing anything. He tries to defend himself and insist he's not a con artist since he doesn't have a Patreon or Kickstarter (of course, we only have his word for this) and yet has a Quora account with thousands of posts, and a Reddit account of course, though his little cultist follower went silent a while ago I think. I'm not going to check because I'm not going back to that despicable, pseudo-intellectual echo chamber of a site full of people who think their IQ fully determines their intellect and that theistic evolution, in all its forms, has been 'debunked'.  

All in all, I feel more confident in saying he's either a) delusional b) attention-seeking or c) a con-artist.

There's lot of people pinning their hopes on information processing. It really doesn't move me at all. It is just too close to following the trend of latching onto whatever is the fashion of the era in which one happens to live. I think consciousness is more timeless and belongs to any era and to none. We don't have a monopoly on wisdom or insights, it is hubris to simply assume that right now, in this time when we are alive, we suddenly found a solution which eluded everyone else for millennia. It just doesn't seem appropriate, it is too obsessed with the importance of this particular era. A longer perspective is needed.

As for the role of the brain in relation to consciousness. Well it seems to me the brain is primarily concerned with sensory input. We usually say humans have five senses. Only one of them is not related to sense-organs in the head. Four out of five physical senses are located in the head. The fifth, that is too, but it also exists throughout the body. So it seems the primary role of the brain is to gather all those sensory inputs and do something with them. That is very much like all sorts of mechanised automation we have these days, from digital cameras to self-driving cars. But I don't have any expectation that my digital camera is conscious.

To be clear I haven’t seen him use the phrase “information processing”, I just used that as a guess. And yeah I agree on the senses bit.

There is one other thing I forgot to mention. That is, our human languages, with words, grammar and so on. I think that is handled by the brain too.

When someone has an NDE, they sometimes find themselves in a situation where they are receiving a lot of knowledge or understanding, or in communication with another being. But in those cases there seems to be some sort of telepathic communication, one that is more effective and may have no need for words, Sometimes words do seem to appear, but there is much more which passes without any need.

I'm getting off topic here, but it often seems to me that words can be a source of confusion and miscommunication, so  although it is a powerful thing, it is by no means ideal. Sometimes I think we may be using telepathy alongside words in our interactions with others - when we are really connecting with someone.

Last time I checked, he's not exactly made a good name for himself online. Even the computationalists don't like him and think he's chatting nonsense. On Google Scholar, all he's written are harsh critiques of other people's essays that are short and unhelpful. No publications or anything of his own work, despite the fact that he claims he's been working in this since 2013! He's done nothing but make himself look like an idiot who shouldn't be taken seriously, especially since he doesn't apparently understand philosophy of mind or philosophy of science at all. He's been accused of conflating terms and misunderstanding the Hard Problem.

He refuses to give any evidence for his ideas or even just a coherent explanation, insisting it's confidential. He back-pedals frequently, and said that he's not even writing a paper, but what he does have is over a thousand pages long or something. He's only ever been in one interview which nobody was impressed by, given how he dances around questions posed to him and doesn't answer properly. His arrogance is unbearable. Case in point: he once said he thinks p-zombies and panpsychism can be disproven, displaying a gross misunderstanding of philosophy and the theories themselves. 

He also implies that he thinks he's already disproven God, life after death and the supernatural via knowledge theories (he never explains how) and that he won't release his work if Trump is re-elected, which is just a silly political excuse for him to delay publishing anything. He tries to defend himself and insist he's not a con artist since he doesn't have a Patreon or Kickstarter (of course, we only have his word for this) and yet has a Quora account with thousands of posts, and a Reddit account of course, though his little cultist follower went silent a while ago I think. I'm not going to check because I'm not going back to that despicable, pseudo-intellectual echo chamber of a site full of people who think their IQ fully determines their intellect and that theistic evolution, in all its forms, has been 'debunked'.  

All in all, I feel more confident in saying he's either a) delusional b) attention-seeking or c) a con-artist.

Huh, wasn’t aware you could leave comments on Google Scholar. 

Really the biggest red flags are the complete lack of any kind of publications and the odd lack of presence. Looking him up and all you’ll find are the Quora account, the LinkedIn page, an episode of a podcast, his twitter (which seems to just be about politics so nothing on his work) a Reddit account, and the posts about him on Reddit. I would just assume he wasn’t real if he wasn’t on that podcast episode.

Him just being attention seeking is weird, cuz while he talks a big game he doesn’t actually put himself out there like you’d think. Other than the Reddit stuff the only thing he has going for himself is Quora. My assumption is that he’s more of the delusional line.

And all those disproofs are ridiculous. You can’t disprove something like God or a Boltzmann brain, not that they necessarily exist but to be completely intellectually honest there’s no way to actually disprove either, all it really is seems to be posturing to further his own agenda (he apparently also has a disproof on why CEOs are bad too apparently, according to his cultist-whose last post seems to have been over two months ago).

To be frank Id just prefer to forget this guy exists until/unless he actually does become relevant. This whole affair is really a bizarre mess all things considered.

In the meantime, I’ll continue on trying to cultivate my own personal experiences like Sci has mentioned before.

There is one other thing I forgot to mention. That is, our human languages, with words, grammar and so on. I think that is handled by the brain too.

When someone has an NDE, they sometimes find themselves in a situation where they are receiving a lot of knoweldge or understanding, or in communication with another being. But in those cases there seems to be some sort of telepathic communication, one that is more effective and may have no need for words, Sometimes words do seem to appear, but there is much more which passes without any need.

I'm getting off topic here, but it often seems to me that words can be a source of confusion and miscommunication, so  although it is a powerful thing, it is by no means ideal. Sometimes I think we may be using telepathy alongside words in our interactions with others - when we are really connecting with someone.

To be fair there’s not much to really be on topic here due to the subject.

But language being related to the brain I think makes sense, heck that recent thing about the guy who can’t read numbers anymore from brain damage seems to indicate parts of the brain being used for comprehending written language (in that case mathematical). 

Words are ultimately abstractions at the end of the day so a telepathic connection likely would give someone more than just if the other person told them something.

Coming back to this thread, thought I'd note that I found that BARehl was seemingly a member of the ex-JREF/International Skeptic's foundation. Is this what he meant by his time 'researching parapsychology'? 

He claims on there to have been working on his theory since at least 2015, but this obviously contradicts his claim that he's been working on it since 2013. 

His assocation with that forum and vice versa only further makes me question the credibilities of both parties.

Edit: He also seems to disregard the opinions of Greyson and others on NDEs in favour of anecdotes, ironically, because he contributed Irreducible Mind. He claims that someone from an Everest expedition experienced anoxia/hypoxia that was, contrary to what Greyson says, 'euphoric'. The only evidence I could find for this was symptoms of mild hypoxia/anoxia, one of which was this feeling. He did not cite a link to this expedition either.