How to build consciousness into a robot: the sensorimotor approach

  • Authors:

  • J. Kevin O'Regan

  • Affiliations:

  • Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS Université Paris Descartes, Centre Universitaire des Saints Pères, Paris Cedex 06, France

  • Venue:
  • 50 years of artificial intelligence
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

The problem of consciousness has been divided by philosophers into the problem of Access Consciousness and the problem of Phenomenal Consciousness or "raw feel". In this chapter it is suggested that Access Consciousness is something that we can logically envisage building into a robot because it is a cognitive capacity giving rise to behaviors or behavioral tendencies or potentials. A few examples are given of how this is being done in current research. On the other hand, Phenomenal Consciousness or "raw feel" is problematic, since we do not know what we really mean by "feel". It is suggested that three main properties are what characterize feel: the fact that feels are different from each other, that there is structure in these differences, and that feels have sensory presence. It is then shown how, by taking the sensorimotor approach[24],[27] it is possible to account for these properties in a natural way and furthermore to make counter-intuitive empirical predictions which have recently been confirmed. In conclusion it is claimed that when we take the sensorimotor approach to feel, building raw feel into a robot becomes a theoretical possibility, even if we are a long way from actually attaining it.