Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent: A Case Study

Abstract:Creatures that display 'hedonic place preference behaviour' are thought by many scientists to experience feelings, on the assumption that their attraction to pleasure-producing substances which lack nutritional value (e.g. cocaine, morphine) cannot easily be attributed to unconscious instinctual behaviour. In this paper, we discuss how a simple artificial agent that instantiates attributes of an affective system engaging in felt uncertainty about its intrinsic needs in relation to environmental resources can similarly display hedonic place preference behaviour -- through an apparently subjective form of information processing -- while simultaneously being entirely deter-ministic. We outline some implications of this artificially engineered behaviour for our understanding of the physical basis of consciousness and the experience of free will.

Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC)

arXiv:2609.03883 [cs.AI]

(or arXiv:2609.03883v1 [cs.AI] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.03883 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

Journal of Consciousness Studies, 33(7-8), 2026, pp. 14-34

https://doi.org/10.53765/20512201.33.7.014 Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources

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