Creatures that display ‘hedonic place preference behaviour’ are thought by many scientists to experience feelings, on the assumption that their attraction to pleasure-producing substances which lack nutritional value (e.g. cocaine, morphine) cannot easily be attributed to unconscious instinctual behaviour. In this paper, we discuss how a simple artificial agent that instantiates attributes of...
This chapter explores the fundamental question of whether a physical body is necessary for consciousness. Moving beyond traditional views in neuroscience and artificial intelligence that often marginalise the body, the authors argue that embodiment should be considered the default condition for conscious experience. By integrating perspectives from machine learning, psychology, and clinical...