AIT foundations of structured experience

Abstract

We present a unifying framework to study consciousness based on algorithmic information theory (AIT). We take as a premise that ``there is experience'' and focus on the requirements for structured experience (S)--- the spatial, temporal, and conceptual organization of our first-person experience of the world and of ourselves as agents in it. Our starting point is the insight that access to good models---succinct and accurate generative programs of world data---is crucial for homeostasis and survival. We hypothesize that the successful comparison of such models with data provides the structure to experience. Building on the concept of Kolmogorov complexity, we can associate the qualitative aspects of S with the algorithmic features of the model, including its length, which reflects the structure discovered in the data. Moreover, a modeling system tracking structured data will display dimensionality reduction and criticality features that can be used empirically to quantify the structure of the program run by the agent. KT provides a consistent framework to define the concepts of life and agent and allows for the comparison between artificial agents and S-reporting humans to provide an educated guess about agent experience. A first challenge is to show that a human agent has S to the extent they run encompassing and compressive models tracking world data. For this, we propose to study the relation between the structure of neurophenomenological, physiological, and behavioral data. The second is to endow artificial agents with the means to discover good models and study their internal states and behavior. We relate the algorithmic framework to other theories of consciousness and discuss some of its epistemological, philosophical, and ethical aspects.