Autonomous Discovery of Phenomenal Consciousness as a Testability Criterion for Theories of Consciousness

Abstract

Scientific theories are typically evaluated by their explanatory and predictive power rather than by their ability to resolve ultimate ontological questions. This methodological perspective is particularly important in consciousness research, where phenomenal consciousness is often treated as difficult to investigate because of its private and subjective nature. In this paper, we propose the Discovery Problem: the problem of explaining how a system becomes capable of autonomously formulating questions concerning phenomenal consciousness.The Discovery Problem differs from the hard problem of consciousness. Rather than asking how conscious experience arises, it asks how systems become capable of treating conscious experience itself as an object of inquiry. Human beings demonstrably possess this capacity, yet its origin remains largely unexplained. We argue that this phenomenon constitutes an important explanatory target for consciousness research.Building on this observation, we propose that the autonomous emergence of phenomenal-consciousness questions can serve as a testability criterion for theories of consciousness. Unlike phenomenal consciousness itself, which cannot be directly observed, the emergence of such questions is, in principle, accessible through language, behavior, conceptual reasoning, and developmental processes. The proposal does not provide a theory of consciousness, nor does it solve the hard problem. Rather, it introduces a complementary research program that provides a more empirically tractable route for investigating consciousness while remaining neutral with respect to competing theories of consciousness.