[1]Principia Cybernetica Web

                                What is consciousness?

   In the [2]evolutionary cybernetic approach, consciousness is not some kind of
   mysterious entity that evades all forms of scientific analysis. Consciousness is
   rather a subtle and complex form of organization characterizing cybernetic
   systems or "agents". Consciousness allows these systems to interact in a
   purposeful, intelligent and sensitive way with their complex and changing
   environment. Because consciousness in its every-day sense is such a vague and
   ambiguous concept, we will try to explain it by subdividing it in its different
   aspects, starting from its most simple and universal properties, that are shared
   by all cybernetic agents, and building up towards its most advanced features,
   that can as yet only be found in humans, who occupy the provisionally highest
   level of the [3]metasystem hierarchy.

   A cybernetic agent is defined as a [4]control system that interacts with its
   environment in such a way as to maximally achieve its goals or values. For
   natural systems, these goals are all derived from the overriding goal of
   maximizing [5]fitness, i.e. survival, growth and reproduction. A cybernetic agent
   steers towards it goal by executing the appropriate actions, taking into account
   the feedback it gets through its senses.

Sensation

   The first, and most primitive, form of consciousness may be called sensation. To
   achieve its goals, or more specifically to survive, a cybernetic agent must be be
   able to perceive or sense its situation. The situation is determined by the state
   of environment and of the agent with respect to the agent's goals, and in
   particular by the deviation between the present state and the desired or goal
   state. Sensation is achieved through the system's sensors, which translate
   phenomena in the environment into internal information that makes sense with
   respect to the system's goals. A sensed deviation automatically triggers a
   corresponding action that would compensate for the deviation, in what may be
   called a "[6]simple reflex".

   The most rudimentary example of such a system is the thermostat, which senses the
   temperature in a room, determines the difference between the sensed temperature
   and the desired temperature, and activates the heating element if the difference
   is too great. The capabilities of sensation of a thermostat are the simplest one
   imaginable: it can sense only one variable, temperature, and only two values for
   that variable (i.e. one bit), "temperature too low" and "temperature high
   enough". More complicated systems may be able to sense many variables
   independently (e.g. temperature and humidity) and many different values for each
   variable, each triggering an appropriate action. Still, we would not yet say that
   such sensing agents are "aware" of their environment.

Awareness

   At the next level of complexity, which we call "[7]complex reflexes" in the
   theory of metasystem transitions, separate sensations do not automatically lead
   to separate actions. Different sensations are rather integrated into an overall
   representation of the situation, which is compared with an overall representation
   of the system's goals. Different sensations and goals interact inside the
   cybernetic agent's "nervous system", affecting the internal, "mental" state of
   the system. The action that the agent eventually takes is determined by its
   internal state, which is the result of all previous sensations and goals, and the
   present perception. There is no longer an immediate connection between sensation
   and action. Rather the agent is affected by the whole of all previous and present
   sensations. Therefore, we may interpret the agent's mental state as not only as
   embodying not only a sensation of the present situation, but a global feeling or
   awareness determined by goals, past and present sensations.

Experience

   At the next metasystem level, which we call "[8]learning" or "associating", the
   agent's decision about which action to take is no longer determined directly by
   its state of awareness. The decision-making mechanism will now adapt or change,
   because the agent will learn from its experience, thus becoming ever more
   effective in its actions. As a result, at different times it may react
   differently to the same sequence of sensations. Now not only the mental state of
   the agent is affected by its sensations, but also the structure of the mental
   system with which it interprets the sensations. This also means that initially
   identical agents that undergo different sequences of sensations will start to
   react differently. Because of their individual experience they will develop their
   own personality, character, or world view. As a result the same phenomenon will
   be experienced in different, unique ways by different agents, having a different
   meaning for each of them.

Self-awareness, reflection

   Learning agents are still dependent on the environment to create new associations
   between sensations. At the next level of "[9]thinking", agents become capable of
   creating their associations themselves, thanks to their capacity to symbolize
   experiences, and combine symbols into novel combinations that have never been
   experienced as such. At this level, the agent becomes aware of its own
   experiences, so that it can examine, analyse, integrate and manipulate these
   experiences. The agent also becomes aware of itself as an agent, similar to, but
   different from, other agents. It becomes capable of reflection or introspection,
   observing its own cognitive processes as if they were external to it. This allows
   the agent to be creative, to imagine situations and ways of achieving them,
   without ever having experienced them directly. It also allows the agent to
   improve its own mental functioning, to become more "conscious" of itself and the
   world.

First-person experience

   The above sequence of levels of consciousness, from sensation, to awareness,
   experience, and self-awareness, in our view captures all the essential properties
   of consciousness. In principle, cybernetic agents that exhibit all these levels
   could be designed and built by engineers, e.g. in the form of some complicated
   neural network with sensors and effectors, that can learn from experience, and
   that uses symbols to represent learned conceptual associations. Such a neural
   network could be used to steer a robot. If the robot's goals, sensations and
   actions are chosen to be similar to those of a person, that robot would behave in
   a way not essentially different from a human being.

   Yet, many consciousness theorists would claim that such a robot would still not
   be conscious, because it would lack what they call "first person experience" or
   "qualia". This so-called "[10]hard problem of consciousness" vanishes if it is
   considered from a cybernetic point of view, according to which the property of
   consciousness is determined by the robot's organization, not by some mysterious
   substance, fluid or force.
     ____________________________________________________________________________

   [11]Copyright© 2000 Principia Cybernetica - [12]Referencing this page

   Author
   F. [13]Heylighen,

   Date
   Apr 12, 2000

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   [19]Is there a "hard problem" of consciousness?
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                                    [20]Discussion
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     * [21]What is the next level of consciousness?, Comment by Ben Swihart

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References

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   7. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/REFLEX.html
   8. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/LEARNING.html
   9. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/THINKING.html
  10. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HARDPROB.html
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[USEMAP]
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CONSCIOU.html#PCP-header
   1. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/DEFAULT.html
   2. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HOWWEB.html
   3. http://pcp.lanl.gov/CONSCIOU.html
   4. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CONSCIOU.html
   5. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SERVER.html
   6. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/hypercard.acgi$randomlink?searchstring=.html
   7. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/RECENT.html
   8. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/TOC.html#CONSCIOU
   9. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SEARCH.html