Artificial Consciousness

Phenomenal vs Functional illustration

Artificial Consciousness is the study of how to design a conscious machine.

Proponents of Artificial Consciousness (AC) believe it is possible to emulate/simulate consciousness in a machine, probably some form of computer. However, there is no general agreement on how this will be done.

There are two main schools of thought in Artificial Consciousness

• Phenomenal Consciousness: Which assumes that simulation of neural structures is the key, some say that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain.
• Functional Consciousness: Which assumes that we can model functions found by psychology

These schools tend to suggest mutually exclusive tests.

Recently a third school has started to develop. Called the Hybrid Consciousness School, it acknowledges that we do not yet have enough knowledge about the nature of the brain to do a pure Functional Approach, and should therefore simulate what we cannot directly translate into functions.

In order to fully understand this topic the student must understand a number of other disciplines and topics such as:

• Philosophy of Mind
• Psychology and how it relates to consciousness
• Neuroscience and the Neural Correlates of Consciousness
• Artificial Intelligence and how it relates to consciousness
• Computer Science and how it relates to language formation
• Natural Language/Linguistics and how they relate to Consciousness

Notes for Instructors:

Warning, this is an informal source, meant as an overview or survey of the currently accepted topics related to this discipline. It does not claim to be suitable for direct use in the classroom, nor does it claim to have academic excellence, if you notice that the wrong terms have been used for a sub-topic please feel free to suggest new ones in the discussion for that page, or edit it yourself.

Also this source does not contain original research; that will be covered at a separate location. think of this as an introduction to the topic.

See Also:

Completion status: About halfway there. You may help to clarify and expand it.

Educational level: this is a non-formal education resource.

Educational level: this is a tertiary (university) resource.

Subject classification: this is a technology resource.

Subject classification: this is a psychology resource.

Subject Classification: this is a neuroscience resource.

• Wikipedia: Artificial consciousness
• Igor Aleksanders Scholarpedia Article on Machine Consciousness