This paper develops a phenomenology-first approach to artificial consciousness by reframing consciousness as the subjective experience enacted through an agent’s interface with the world. We shift the methodological focus to first-person structures, modeled mathematically by categories derived from Q-networks to capture actions and phenomenological invariants. In this framework, Q-networks are...
The interface theory of perception maintains that sensory systems evolved to present agents with an 'adaptive desktop' rather than a veridical picture of the world. Physical reality is an evolutionary construct. By contrast, consciousness and agency are fundamental, irreducible elements not emergent from physics. Building on this framework, the quantum interface theory (QIT) is introduced....
Whether artificial intelligence (AI) systems can possess consciousness is a contentious question because of the inherent challenges of defining and operationalizing subjective experience. This paper proposes a framework to reframe the question of artificial consciousness into empirically tractable tests. We introduce three evaluative criteria – S (subjective-linguistic), L (latent-emergent),...
The current stage of consciousness science has reached an impasse. We blame the physicalist worldview for this and propose a new perspective to make progress on the problems of consciousness. Our perspective is rooted in the theory of conscious agents. We thereby stress the fundamentality of consciousness outside of spacetime, the importance of agency, and the mathematical character of the...
Originally conceived as a theory of consciousness, integrated information theory (IIT) provides a theoretical framework intended to characterize the compositional causal information that a system, in its current state, specifies about itself. However, it remains to be determined whether IIT as a theory of consciousness is compatible with quantum mechanics as a theory of microphysics. Here, we...
What are conscious experiences? Can they combine to form new experiences? What are conscious subjects? Can they combine to form new subjects? Most attempts to answer these questions assume that spacetime, and some of its particles, are fundamental. However, physicists tell us that spacetime cannot be fundamental. Spacetime, they say, is doomed. We heed the physicists, and drop the assumption...
Originally conceived as a theory of consciousness, integrated information theory (IIT) provides a theoretical framework intended to characterize the compositional causal information that a system, in its current state, specifies about itself. However, it remains to be determined whether IIT as a theory of consciousness is compatible with quantum mechanics as a theory of microphysics. Here, we...
What are the potential uses and misuses of applying category theory to the study of consciousness? We first review a recent proposal from the neurosciences of consciousness to illustrate the general approach using the integrated information theory of consciousness. We then propose possible avenues for further research, importantly also stressing the need to better develop the categorical...
Models of consciousness need to explain both the objective correlates of conscious experience as well as its subjective structure. However, such an explanation would not need to entail a reduction exclusively in terms of physical or neural systems. A model that intends to avoid such reduction is integrated information theory (IIT). In this article, we discuss the explanatory rationale of IIT,...
Models of consciousness aim to inspire new experimental protocols and aid interpretation of empirical evidence to reveal the structure of conscious experience. Nevertheless, no current model is univocally accepted on either theoretical or empirical grounds. Moreover, a straightforward comparison is difficult for conceptual reasons. In particular, we argue that different models explicitly or...
In this paper, we propose a mathematical model of subjective experience in terms of classes of hierarchical geometries of representations ("n-awareness"). We first outline a general framework by recalling concepts from higher category theory, homotopy theory, and the theory of (infinity, 1)-topoi. We then state three conjectures that enrich this framework. We first propose that the (infinity,...
A theory of consciousness, whatever else it may do, must address the structure of experience. Our perceptual experiences are richly structured. Simply seeing a red apple, swaying between green leaves on a stout tree, involves symmetries, geometries, orders, topologies, and algebras of events. Are these structures also present in the world, fully independent of their observation? Perceptual...
A new philosophy of nature is urgently needed. The received ontological view, physicalism, is unable to account for experiential phenomena and in particular for consciousness in all its varieties. We shall outline the concept of experiencing which should figure as a new conceptual primitive in natural philosophy. Experiencing refers to a process which comprises the interaction of an agent with...
This perspective examines the role of chemistry and molecular biology for a science of consciousness. Opposed to the consensus view, we argue that the molecular organization of biological systems is key to arrive at a thorough understanding of the dynamics correlated to the phenomenology of consciousness in complex organisms. This is indicated by the fact that the molecular sciences either...
In this contribution, we emphasize the relevance of mathematical approaches to the first-person perspective. We briefly discuss why this is necessary and why mathematics plays a special role when it comes to integrating scientific (empirical) and philosophical (theoretical) projects. We also sketch some potential ways that mathematics could be used in phenomenology, based on a selection of four...