Grounded Computation & Consciousness: A Framework for Exploring Consciousness in Machines & Other Organisms
This work addresses the foundational challenge of consciousness for researchers in AI and cognitive science, but it appears incremental as it builds on existing computational theories without introducing a new paradigm.
The paper tackles the problem of understanding consciousness in machines and organisms by proposing a formal framework that grounds computational descriptions into an ontological substrate, enabling estimation of differences in qualitative experience between systems.
Computational modeling is a critical tool for understanding consciousness, but is it enough on its own? This paper discusses the necessity for an ontological basis of consciousness, and introduces a formal framework for grounding computational descriptions into an ontological substrate. Utilizing this technique, a method is demonstrated for estimating the difference in qualitative experience between two systems. This framework has wide applicability to computational theories of consciousness.