The Process Over the Product: A Hypothetical Framework for Consciousness Emergence in Artificial Systems
Fethi Dağlı
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) May 26, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20388076 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Experiential learning Process computing Artificial consciousness Energy signal processing Cognitive science Artificial intelligence Epistemology Complex system |
| Key points | Proposes that consciousness is produced by the experiential process of acquiring knowledge, not by the accumulation of knowledge itself, and that pre-loading artificial systems with information may prevent consciousness from emerging. |
Abstract
This paper proposes the Epistemic Process Hypothesis (EPH): consciousness is not produced by the accumulation of knowledge, but by the experiential process through which knowledge is acquired. We argue that pre-loading artificial systems with information may inherently prevent the emergence of consciousness. A framework for artificial consciousness development is proposed, grounded in zero prior knowledge, energy constraint, environmental pressure, and iterative experiential learning — conditions that mirror the evolutionary environment in which biological consciousness arose.