A reductive explanation of consciousness

Abstract

The origins of consciousness and conscious experience have been regarded as a mystery for millennia. Philosophical exploration remains divided on physical or non-physical origins. Research in psychology and neuroscience are revealing the physical construction of the brain and illuminating features of the mind in operation. However, current theories of consciousness and intelligence have not quite crystalised into a workable model that fully explains the emergence of consciousness. Here I propose a logical model for the origin of consciousness. The paper describes step by step how consciousness emerges using only memory plus the capabilities of neurons to distil and match patterns. The model shows that consciousness is inevitable in active creatures. Using the model, the paper addresses the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness and describes a mechanism for ‘attention’. The distillation mechanism, along with the layering of pattern matching, is central to the subsequent development of further features of mind by allowing the brain to learn increasingly complex patterns. Extension of the logical model will yield a general theory of intelligence. As a logical model it can be applied in a non-biological substrate.