[ExI] Answering the Hard Problem, with applications to AI Consciousness

[John Clark]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2026 at 3:35 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*> I have just published a new revision of a paper:*
> *Epistemic Horizons: A Computational Theory of Consciousness, Perspective,
> and Knowability* <https://philpapers.org/archive/RESEHA.pdf>
>

*I agree that consciousness begins when information makes an objective
difference to the way a process behaves. The clear implication from that
premise is that because differences come in various magnitudes and
complexities so does consciousness; thus even a thermostat has
consciousness (although a ridiculously tiny amount of it) because the
information on what temperature it is set at affects its behavior.*

*Your paper says the whole thing hasn't been adequately described if you
leave out the perspective of the process itself, but that is circular
because "inner perspective" is just a synonym for consciousness. I think it
would be better to just say consciousness is the way data feels when it is
being processed intelligently. Also, the paper makes it clear that
"process" is of central importance, and I think you're right, but that also
implies that personal pronouns are misnamed because they are not nouns at
all, they are adjectives. Wouldn't that mean that "I" am the way that atoms
behave when they are arranged in a certain interacting pattern? *

*In most everyday situations if somebody says "I am thinking"
imagining some "thing" doing the thinking causes no problems, but if your
discussion involves a philosophical investigation into the fundamental
nature of reality then that conventional line of thought can quickly turn
into a tangle of impenetrable logical contradictions.  Things are greatly
simplified if you realize that** the process isn't something that happens
to you, the process is you.*

*But that still leaves open a question, why does intelligent processing
produce consciousness at all? An iterated sequence of "why" questions
either goes on forever or it terminates in a brute fact, an effect without
a cause. In this case I think it terminates in a brute fact. *

*John K Clark*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20260911/cdc220de/attachment.htm>