Categorical AI phenomenology: A first-person approach
PsyArXiv April 11, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/axwhz_v1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Key points | Proposes a phenomenology-first framework for artificial consciousness in which consciousness is understood as subjective experience enacted through an agent's interface with the world, modeled mathematically via categories derived from Q-networks. Argues that Q-networks serve as relational interfaces encoding agent-world interaction, yielding a rigorous account of "interface consciousness" aligned with 4E cognition and grounded in categorical mathematics. |
Abstract
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 conceptualized as relational interfaces encoding agent-world interaction, analogous to how the dynamical states of a computer depend on its sensory inputs, previous states, and actions.Our work provides a rigorous framework for interface consciousness to describe computational systems that embed information-processing into phenomenological structure. The approach aligns with 4E approaches to cognition by emphasizing enactive, embedded, and extended dimensions of experience. The paper thus offers a principled, relational, and phenomenological account of artificial phenomenology grounded in categorical mathematics.
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