PHENOMENAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND BIOLOGICALLY INSPIRED SYSTEMS

Abstract

The stated aim of adherents to the paradigm called biologically inspired cognitive architectures (BICA) is to build machines that address "the challenge of creating a real-life computational equivalent of the human mind".(From the mission statement of the new BICA journal.) In contrast, practitioners of machine consciousness (MC) are driven by the observation that these human minds for which one is trying to find equivalents are generally thought to be conscious. (Of course, this is controversial because there is no evidence of consciousness in behavior. But as the hypothesis of the consciousness of others is commonly used, a rejection of it has to be considered just as much as its acceptance.) In this paper, it is asked whether those who would like to build computational equivalents of the human mind can do so while ignoring the role of consciousness in what is called the mind. This is not ignored in the MC paradigm and the consequences, particularly on phenomenological treatments of the mind, are briefly explored. A measure based on a subjective feel for how well a model matches personal experience is introduced. An example is given which illustrates how MC can clarify the double-cognition tenet of Strawson's cognitive phenomenology.