A computational analysis of consciousness

Abstract

This chapter serves to illustrate computational modelling. It proposes that the appropriate level of discourse for a theory of consciousness is that of computation, locating the explanation in the software rather than the hardware of the brain. By focusing on the functional role of consciousness, this chapter attempts to account for four of its aspects: awarness, self-awareness, intentions, and control. This last aspect is taken to correspond, in a computational model, to the regulation of the output of parallel processes by an operating system with access to a model of the self. Recursive embedding is what is claimed to account for awareness and self-awareness. Whether an instantiation of this model would produce subjective qualities of experience (or what one could agree to be their equivalent) is a fascinating question.

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