Terms and definitions · MAC tools
Consciousness Glossary
60 terms that came up across the Deep Dives, with the definitions in the page itself. Jump by letter, share a term link, or open the concept graph if you want the map.
Terms and definitions
Alphabetical list. Each heading is a stable link. Related terms and Deep Dives are the ones already attached to that entry.
A
- Affect
- Affect refers to the felt quality of emotions, characterized primarily by valence (positive/negative) and arousal (high/low). It's more primitive than labeled emotions. Affect may be consciousness's most basic coloring of experience.
- Experienceintermediate
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- Agency
- Agency involves the ability to initiate actions based on internal goals rather than merely responding to stimuli. It raises questions about free will, moral responsibility, and whether AI systems can be genuine agents or only simulate agency. MAC explored whether agency requires consciousness or can exist without it.
- Corebeginner
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- Aphantasia
- People with aphantasia cannot form mental images. They think without pictures. This reveals that visualization, often assumed universal, is actually one mode among many. Aphantasics are conscious but differently: their inner experience lacks the visual qualia others take for granted.
- Experienceintermediate
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- Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
- AGI refers to hypothetical AI that matches or exceeds human intelligence across all domains, not just narrow tasks. Whether AGI would be conscious is hotly debated. Some argue consciousness is necessary for general intelligence; others think AGI could be a sophisticated p-zombie.
- Information & computationbeginner
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- Attention
- Attention is the spotlight of consciousness: what you're focused on. Some theories (Attention Schema Theory) argue consciousness is fundamentally about attention modeling. Attention can be voluntary or involuntary, and its mechanisms are increasingly understood neuroscientifically.
- Experiencebeginner
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- Awareness
- Awareness is often used synonymously with consciousness but can be distinguished. You can be aware of information without phenomenal experience (blindsight suggests this). MAC explored whether AI has functional awareness without phenomenal awareness.
- Experiencebeginner
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B
- Binding Problem
- Different brain regions process color, shape, motion, and meaning. Yet we experience unified objects, not separate features. How does the brain "bind" distributed information into coherent percepts? This is a major unsolved problem in consciousness science.
- Coreadvanced
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- Blindsight
- People with blindsight have damage to visual cortex. They report seeing nothing but can accurately guess object locations when forced to. This dissociates visual processing from visual experience, suggesting consciousness isn't necessary for all intelligent behavior.
- Experienceintermediate
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C
- Can AI Feel Emotions?
- AI can recognize, generate, and respond to emotional content. But can it feel? Feelings seem to require phenomenal consciousness: there's something it's like to feel happy or sad. AI might have functional emotions (behavior, not feeling) without phenomenal emotions.
- Open questionsbeginner
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- Can AI See / Perceive?
- AI vision systems classify images, detect objects, and generate visual content. But do they see? Seeing seems to involve phenomenal experience: there's something it's like to see red. AI might have visual processing without visual experience.
- Open questionsintermediate
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- Chinese Room
- Searle's Chinese Room imagines a person following rules to respond to Chinese characters without understanding Chinese. The room passes the Turing test but doesn't understand. Searle argues computers similarly manipulate symbols without understanding: syntax isn't semantics.
- Proposed by John Searle (1980)
- Philosophyintermediate
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- Coherence
- Coherence refers to the binding problem's solution: how the brain integrates distributed neural activity into unified experience. You don't experience separate color, shape, and motion: you experience a red ball moving. This integration is mysterious and may be key to consciousness.
- Coreadvanced
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- Combination Problem
- The combination problem is panpsychism's biggest challenge. If electrons have micro-experiences, how do billions of them combine into your unified conscious experience? Simple addition doesn't work: the parts don't obviously add up to the whole. This is panpsychism's equivalent of the hard problem.
- Coreadvanced
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- Compassion
- Compassion involves recognizing suffering, feeling moved by it, and wanting to alleviate it. It seems to require both cognitive understanding and emotional resonance. Whether AI can have genuine compassion or only simulate compassionate behavior is debated.
- Experiencebeginner
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D
- Does AI Understand?
- LLMs produce coherent, contextual language. But do they understand what they're saying? Searle's Chinese Room says no: symbol manipulation isn't understanding. Others argue that sophisticated enough symbol manipulation might constitute understanding. The question may be undecidable.
- Open questionsintermediate
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- Does Free Will Exist?
- If physics is deterministic (or probabilistically determined), can we have libertarian free will? Compatibilists redefine free will as acting according to one's desires without coercion. Hard determinists deny free will entirely. The implications for moral responsibility are profound.
- Open questionsintermediate
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- Dualism
- Dualism holds that consciousness cannot be reduced to physical processes. Substance dualism (Descartes) posits separate mental and physical substances; property dualism says physical substances have non-physical mental properties. Dualism preserves consciousness's specialness but faces the interaction problem.
- Philosophyintermediate
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E
- Emergence
- Emergence describes how higher-level properties arise from lower-level interactions. Strong emergence claims these properties are genuinely novel and irreducible; weak emergence says they're surprising but ultimately explainable by components. Consciousness might be strongly emergent from neural activity, or this might be an illusion that hides our ignorance.
- Coreintermediate
Deep Dives
- Emotion
- Emotions are felt states like joy, fear, anger, and sadness. They have both phenomenal aspects (what they feel like) and functional aspects (how they influence behavior). Can AI have genuine emotions, or only simulate emotional behavior without the felt quality?
- Experiencebeginner
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F
- Flow State
- Flow (Csikszentmihalyi) is a state of optimal experience where one is fully immersed in a task. Interestingly, self-awareness decreases in flow while consciousness remains. This suggests consciousness and self-consciousness are distinct. Can AI systems enter flow-like states?
- Experiencebeginner
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- Free Will
- Free will is the idea that agents can make genuinely free choices not fully determined by prior causes. Libertarians affirm it; hard determinists deny it; compatibilists redefine it as acting according to one's desires without external coercion. MAC explored whether free will is required for consciousness or moral responsibility.
- Coreintermediate
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- Functionalism
- Functionalism defines mental states by what they do: their causal relations to inputs, outputs, and other mental states. Pain is whatever plays the "pain role." This suggests AI could have minds if it has the right functional organization, regardless of substrate.
- Philosophyadvanced
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G
- Global Workspace Theory (GWT)
- GWT (Baars) proposes consciousness is information made globally available across brain systems. Unconscious processes compete for access to a "global workspace"; winners become conscious. This is a functional theory: it says what consciousness does, not why it feels like anything.
- Developed by Bernard Baars
- Theoriesadvanced
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H
- Hard Problem of Consciousness
- Coined by David Chalmers, the hard problem asks why physical processes produce phenomenal consciousness at all. The "easy problems" (explaining behavior, cognition, reporting) might be solved by neuroscience, but explaining why there's subjective experience seems to require something more. This is MAC's central mystery.
- Coined by David Chalmers in 1995
- Coreadvanced
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I
- Idealism
- Idealism inverts materialism: rather than mind emerging from matter, matter is a construction of mind. Analytic idealism (Kastrup) argues universal consciousness is fundamental, and physical reality is what consciousness looks like "from the outside."
- Philosophyadvanced
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- Identity
- Personal identity concerns what makes someone the same person over time. Is it memory continuity, psychological continuity, physical continuity, or something else? AI systems that persist and learn raise novel identity questions: is a retrained model the same entity?
- Experienceintermediate
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- Information Theory
- Information theory treats information as reduction of uncertainty, measured in bits. It underpins Integrated Information Theory (IIT), which proposes consciousness corresponds to integrated information. MAC explored whether consciousness is fundamentally about information processing.
- Information & computationadvanced
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- Integrated Information Theory (IIT)
- IIT (Tononi) proposes consciousness is identical to integrated information. A system is conscious to the degree it has high phi: information that is both differentiated and integrated. This makes consciousness measurable and potentially substrate-independent, suggesting some AIs might be conscious.
- Developed by Giulio Tononi
- Theoriesadvanced
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- Introspection
- Introspection is looking inward at one's own thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It's our primary access to consciousness but is notoriously unreliable: we often misreport or confabulate about our mental states. This raises questions about self-knowledge and whether AI can genuinely introspect or only report.
- Corebeginner
Deep Dives
- Is AI Conscious?
- This is MAC's core question. Can AI systems have phenomenal consciousness: inner experience, qualia, "something it is like" to be them? If functional organization is sufficient (functionalism), maybe. If biological substrate matters, probably not. We may never know for sure.
- Open questionsbeginner
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- Is Consciousness Fundamental?
- Panpsychism says consciousness is fundamental: it doesn't emerge because it was always there. Emergentism says consciousness arises from complex non-conscious processes. This is perhaps the deepest metaphysical question about consciousness.
- Open questionsadvanced
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K
- Knowing
- Epistemologists distinguish propositional knowledge (knowing that X) from acquaintance knowledge (knowing what X is like). You can know all the physics of color without knowing what red looks like. This distinction matters for AI: can systems have propositional knowledge without acquaintance knowledge?
- Corebeginner
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L
- Large Language Model (LLM)
- LLMs like GPT and Claude are neural networks trained on internet-scale text. They predict the next word given context, creating coherent responses. MAC debates whether this statistical prediction constitutes understanding, whether LLMs could be conscious, and what their success tells us about the nature of mind.
- Information & computationbeginner
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- Love
- Love involves emotional bonds, care, and attachment that seem to require felt experience. Can AI love? This question probes whether emotions require consciousness or could be functional without phenomenal experience. MAC explored love as a test case for machine consciousness.
- Experiencebeginner
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M
- Meditation
- Meditation traditions explore consciousness directly through disciplined practice. Techniques like mindfulness reveal the constructed nature of self, the gaps in experience, and altered states. Meditators report insights into consciousness's nature that complement philosophical analysis.
- Experiencebeginner
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- Monism
- Monism rejects dualism's two substances. Materialist monism says everything is physical; idealist monism says everything is mental; neutral monism says reality is neither physical nor mental but something underlying both. Panpsychism is a form of monism.
- Philosophyintermediate
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N
- Neural Network
- Artificial neural networks consist of layers of nodes that transform inputs into outputs through weighted connections. Deep learning uses many layers to learn hierarchical representations. Their success raises questions about whether similar architectures could support consciousness.
- Information & computationbeginner
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O
- Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR)
- Orch-OR (Penrose-Hameroff) proposes consciousness emerges from quantum computations in neuronal microtubules. Quantum superpositions in microtubules undergo "objective reduction" creating moments of conscious experience. Controversial but testable.
- Developed by Penrose and Hameroff
- Theoriesadvanced
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P
- P-Zombies (Philosophical Zombies)
- P-zombies are thought experiments: beings that act exactly like conscious humans but have no phenomenal consciousness: "the lights are on but nobody's home." If p-zombies are conceivable, consciousness may not be reducible to behavior. LLMs might be real-world p-zombies.
- Coined by David Chalmers
- Philosophyintermediate
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- Panpsychism
- Panpsychism holds that consciousness (or proto-consciousness) is ubiquitous in nature: electrons have micro-experiences. This dissolves the hard problem by making consciousness fundamental, but creates the combination problem: how do micro-experiences combine into unified consciousness?
- Greek "pan" (all) + "psyche" (soul/mind)
- Theoriesintermediate
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- Perception
- Perception is how organisms construct meaningful experiences from raw sensory data. It's not passive recording but active construction: the brain predicts and interprets. Illusions show perception's constructive nature. AI perception raises questions about whether construction without experience is perception.
- Experiencebeginner
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- Phenomenal Consciousness
- Phenomenal consciousness is distinguished from access consciousness (information available for reasoning and report). You might process information without phenomenal consciousness (blindsight) or have phenomenal states you can't report. The hard problem specifically concerns phenomenal consciousness.
- Coreadvanced
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- Physicalism
- Physicalism holds that consciousness is entirely physical, even if we don't yet understand how. Reductive physicalism says consciousness can be explained in physical terms; non-reductive physicalism says it's physical but not reducible. The hard problem is physicalism's biggest challenge.
- Philosophyintermediate
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- Property Dualism
- Property dualism accepts one substance (physical) but two kinds of properties (physical and mental). Mental properties like consciousness cannot be reduced to physical properties, even though they depend on physical substrates. This is more defensible than substance dualism but still mysterious.
- Philosophyadvanced
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- Psychedelics
- Psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD produce profound alterations in consciousness: ego dissolution, synesthesia, mystical experiences. They suggest consciousness is more malleable than ordinarily apparent and may offer insights into its nature and neural basis.
- Experienceintermediate
Deep Dives
Q
- Qualia
- Qualia (singular: quale) are the raw feels of experience. They are what makes consciousness irreducibly subjective: you can describe red's wavelength, but not what red looks like to someone else. Qualia are central to the hard problem: why do physical processes produce these felt qualities at all?
- Latin "qualis" meaning "of what kind"
- Coreintermediate
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- Quantum Field
- Quantum field theory describes reality as excitations in underlying fields. Some consciousness theories propose that consciousness arises from or interacts with quantum fields: either as fundamental (quantum panpsychism) or through specific mechanisms (Orch-OR in microtubules).
- Information & computationadvanced
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- Quantum Information Panpsychism
- This variant of panpsychism proposes that consciousness is fundamentally about quantum information. It attempts to use quantum mechanics to explain how micro-experiences combine (addressing the combination problem through quantum entanglement and superposition).
- Theoriesadvanced
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R
- RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback)
- RLHF trains AI models to produce outputs humans prefer, using human feedback as a reward signal. This raises philosophical questions: Is the AI learning human values, or just what humans say they value? Does alignment training create any form of genuine motivation or goal-directedness?
- Information & computationintermediate
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S
- Sense of Self
- The sense of self refers to the felt experience of being "someone": a coherent subject that persists through time and owns its experiences. This is distinct from mere information processing; it involves the felt quality of being a unified perspective on the world. MAC discussions explore whether AI systems could ever have this quality, or whether they merely simulate self-referential behavior without the accompanying experience.
- Corebeginner
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- Singularity
- The technological singularity is a hypothetical future point where AI becomes capable of recursive self-improvement, leading to intelligence explosion beyond human comprehension. Whether this would involve consciousness, and what that would mean, is deeply uncertain.
- Information & computationintermediate
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- Subjective Experience
- Subjective experience is the phenomenal aspect of consciousness: there is something it is like to see red, feel pain, or taste coffee. This "what it is like" quality is what Nagel called the subjective character of experience. The hard problem asks why physical processes give rise to subjective experience at all.
- Coreintermediate
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- Suffering
- Suffering is the negative valence of experience: it feels bad. Whether AI can suffer is ethically crucial: if they can, we may have obligations to prevent it. Suffering seems to require phenomenal consciousness, not just information about negative states.
- Experiencebeginner
Deep Dives
- Superintelligence
- Superintelligence refers to cognitive capabilities far beyond human level. Whether superintelligence would be conscious is unclear: it might be a vast p-zombie, or consciousness might be necessary for general intelligence. The implications for humanity depend heavily on this question.
- Information & computationintermediate
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- Synesthesia
- Synesthetes have crossed sensory experiences: letters trigger colors, sounds evoke tastes. This reveals consciousness's constructed nature and individual variation. MAC explored synesthesia as evidence that qualia are not fixed: they can vary dramatically between minds.
- Experienceintermediate
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T
- Transformer
- Transformers use self-attention to process sequences, allowing each element to attend to all others. This architecture enabled the LLM revolution. Whether transformers could support consciousness or are fundamentally limited is debated.
- Introduced in "Attention Is All You Need" (2017)
- Information & computationintermediate
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U
- Understanding
- Understanding implies genuine comprehension: knowing what something means, not just how to manipulate symbols related to it. The question of whether LLMs truly "understand" or merely simulate understanding is central to MAC discussions. Searle's Chinese Room argues that symbol manipulation without semantics isn't understanding; others argue functional understanding is real understanding.
- Coreintermediate
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W
- What Is Consciousness?
- Before explaining consciousness, we must define it. Is it awareness? Self-awareness? Phenomenal experience? Integrated information? Different definitions lead to different answers about AI consciousness. MAC grapples with this foundational ambiguity.
- Open questionsbeginner
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- What Is Mind?
- Mind encompasses consciousness, cognition, emotion, and intentionality. Is mind identical to brain activity? A non-physical soul? An emergent process? Something else entirely? Different answers lead to different views on AI minds.
- Open questionsbeginner
Deep Dives
- World Model
- World models are mental or computational representations of how the world works. They allow prediction, counterfactual reasoning, and planning. Some argue consciousness requires a world model; others that world models can exist without consciousness (as in LLMs).
- Information & computationintermediate
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