Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
October 28, 2026
Guoping Hua
preprint
The most vexing gap in current research on AI consciousness is not merely that the question of whether machines possess subjective experience remains unsettled; more fundamentally, the "self" is often treated as an already-existing premise. Theories can explain how information is broadcast, integrated, or represented at a higher order, yet they rarely ask how a system gets from "having a body"...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
October 28, 2026
Guoping Hua
preprint
Traditional discussions of artificial intelligence consciousness have long been trapped in the binary opposition of "conscious or not": one camp equates the linguistic simulation of large models directly with full human consciousness, while the reductionist camp reduces all AI behavior to mere statistical fitting, denying any genuine thinking or reflection. Drawing on a hierarchical framework...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
October 28, 2026
Guoping Hua
preprint
Whether artificial intelligence possesses consciousness cannot be reduced to a simple yes-or-no question. It requires clarification of the internal layers of consciousness-related phenomena. This paper proposes a six-level framework: the physical substrate of consciousness, structural functional response, bodily sensation, emotional reenactment, rational cognitive response, and social-emotional...
Guoping Hua
preprint
This paper develops a reflection-response framework for distinguishing thinking from consciousness and applies the framework to debates about artificial intelligence. Thinking is defined as first-order reflection: the representation, retrieval, recombination, and inference of object-states. Consciousness is defined as subject response: awareness, evaluation, regulation, and feedback in relation...
Guoping Hua
preprint
The hard problem of consciousness has long appeared intractable not because of the problem itself, but because its very formulation smuggles in three reviewable presuppositions: a mindbody dualist ontology, an observer-neutrality assumption, and-most insidiously-the presupposition of the isolated subject. This paper argues that the classical formulation splits a single continuous genetic...