# The Consciousness AI, researcher index

> Every researcher profiled on theconsciousness.ai, grouped by the position their
> published work defends. One fetch instead of crawling 91 pages.
> Generated at build time from _researchers/*.md and _data/positions.yml.

Source: https://theconsciousness.ai/consciousness-researchers/
Updated: 2026-08-25
Profiles: 91

## How to read this file

Each entry gives the researcher's name, their profile URL on this site, their
affiliation, the position their published work defends, what they are known for, and
the articles on this site that cover their work. Where an entry has a "Position on AI"
line, that is a position the researcher has published. Entries without one have not
had a position recorded, which is not the same as having none.

These are descriptions of published work. Nobody listed here has endorsed, or is
involved with, this project. Corrections and removal requests: info@theconsciousness.ai

## Functionalists and computationalists

What matters is the organisation of the processing, not the material. On artificial systems: an artificial system can be conscious.
Index page: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/functionalists/

### Blaise Agüera y Arcas

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/blaise-aguera-y-arcas/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Google VP and Fellow, CTO of Technology & Society
- Known for: Computational functionalism, active inference, on-device neural computing, What Is Intelligence? (2025), and Who Are We Now? (2023)
- Summary: Blaise Agüera y Arcas investigates the foundations of intelligence, neural computation, and social self-modeling. His work treats intelligence and subjective perspective as emergent computational properties distributed across biological and synthetic substrates.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Blaise Aguera y Arcas on Computational Functionalism and the Spectrum of Mind (2026-08-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/blaise-aguera-y-arcas-computational-functionalism-intelligence/

### Matt Angle

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/matt-angle/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Paradromics
- Known for: Founder and CEO of Paradromics, developer of the Connexus Direct Data Interface high-data-rate brain-computer interface
- Summary: Matt Angle is a neuroengineer and CEO of Paradromics, an Austin-based neural technology company. He holds a PhD in physics from Heidelberg University and conducted postdoctoral research in neurobiology at Stanford. His work focuses on developing high-density, broadband microelectrode arrays designed to scale cortical recording to tens of thousands of channels for high-bandwidth brain-computer interfaces.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Paradromics Neuralink and what a real cortical interface would need (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/paradromics-neuralink-cortical-interface-bandwidth-consciousness/

### Joscha Bach

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/joscha-bach/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: California Institute for Machine Consciousness
- Known for: The machine consciousness hypothesis, cyber animism, and MicroPsi
- Summary: Joscha Bach treats the mind as a self organising software process running on a brain. On that view consciousness is a pattern, and the hardware is incidental.
- Position on AI: Bach holds that a general computational machine with sufficient resources can implement consciousness, through self organised second order perception that raises global coherence. On his account the mind is a software process and the substrate is a detail.
- Coverage on this site (8):
  - Joscha Bach on Consciousness and Identity Cyber-Animism and Causal Insulation at CIMC (2026-07-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/joscha-bach-consciousness-identity-cyber-animism-cimc-2026/
  - Joscha Bach and Davidad on Whether LLMs Are Conscious, AI Awakening, and the Successor Species Question (2026-07-13): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/joscha-bach-davidad-machine-consciousness-ai-awakening-2026/
  - How Joscha Bach and Hikari Sorensen Specify the Requirements for Machine Consciousness (2026-07-07): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/cimc-sorensen-bach-machine-consciousness-salon-genesis-theory-2026/
  - Joscha Bach's Machine Consciousness Hypothesis and The Virtual Machine Theory of Mind (2026-06-29): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/joscha-bach-machine-consciousness-hypothesis-2026/
  - MC0001 After the Founding Assembly What the Berkeley Conference Produced (2026-06-02): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/mc0001-post-conference-report-machine-consciousness-2026/
  - MC0001 How the CIMC Is Trying to Found Machine Consciousness as a Science (2026-04-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/mc0001-cimc-machine-consciousness-conference-berkeley-2026/
  - The Machine Consciousness Hypothesis Cyberanimism and the Software of the Mind (2026-01-22): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/machine-consciousness-hypothesis-cyberanimism/
  - TCAI and Bach's Approach (2025-01-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/acm-with-bach-comparison/

### Max Bennett

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/max-bennett/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Independent Researcher and AI Entrepreneur
- Known for: The Five Breakthroughs evolutionary neuroscience framework and A Brief History of Intelligence (2023)
- Summary: Max Bennett synthesizes evolutionary neuroscience and artificial intelligence, mapping the five major computational breakthroughs that built the vertebrate, mammalian, and human brain.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Max Bennett Five Breakthroughs in Evolutionary Neuroscience and AI Minds (2026-08-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/max-bennett-five-breakthroughs-evolutionary-neuroscience-ai-consciousness/

### Michael Timothy Bennett

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/michael-timothy-bennett/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: School of Computing, Australian National University
- Known for: Mathematical foundations of emergent causality, valence-driven self-organization, and 'Why Is Anything Conscious?'
- Summary: Michael Timothy Bennett formalizes the mathematical principles linking biological self-preservation, valence-driven information processing, and emergent causality in natural and artificial minds.
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - Michael Timothy Bennett on Emergent Causality and Biological Valence (2026-08-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/michael-timothy-bennett-why-is-anything-conscious-emergent-causality/
  - Stack Theory in Practice How Perrier and Bennett Measure LM Agent Identity (2026-05-31): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/perrier-bennett-time-identity-consciousness-language-model-agents-2026/

### Lenore Blum

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/lenore-blum/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
- Known for: Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) formal architecture (with Manuel Blum), Blum-Shub-Smale (BSS) model of real computation, theoretical computer science
- Summary: Lenore Blum co-developed the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM), a formal mathematical model of machine consciousness inspired by theoretical computer science and GWT.
- Homepage: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~lblum/
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Haofei Yu Lenore Blum and Manuel Blum CTM-AI Blueprint Conscious Turing Machine (2026-08-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/haofei-yu-lenore-blum-manuel-blum-ctm-ai-conscious-turing-machine/

### Manuel Blum

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/manuel-blum/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Carnegie Mellon University / University of California, Berkeley
- Known for: Turing Award Laureate (1995), Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) formal architecture, Blum axioms of computational complexity, cryptography pioneer
- Summary: Manuel Blum is a Turing Award-winning computer scientist who co-developed the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM), a formal computational architecture of conscious processing.
- Homepage: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mblum/
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Haofei Yu Lenore Blum and Manuel Blum CTM-AI Blueprint Conscious Turing Machine (2026-08-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/haofei-yu-lenore-blum-manuel-blum-ctm-ai-conscious-turing-machine/

### Nick Bostrom

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/nick-bostrom/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Oxford University
- Known for: Superintelligence (2014), the Simulation Argument (2003), and co-authoring Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap (2008)
- Summary: Nick Bostrom is a philosopher at Oxford University and founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute. His research spans existential risk, anthropic reasoning, superintelligence, and the philosophy of mind. His work on the Simulation Argument and Whole Brain Emulation established the rigorous philosophical basis for substrate independence and digital minds.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - The Sandberg and Bostrom whole brain emulation roadmap eighteen years on (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/sandberg-bostrom-whole-brain-emulation-roadmap-consciousness/

### Peter Carruthers

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/peter-carruthers/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: University of Maryland
- Known for: Dispositionalist higher-order thought theory of consciousness
- Summary: Carruthers holds that a mental state is conscious when it is available to higher-order thought, whether or not that thought actually occurs. The weaker requirement matters for whether AI self-monitoring counts.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Peter Carruthers and the Dispositional Higher-Order Theory of Consciousness (2026-08-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/peter-carruthers-dispositional-higher-order-theory-ai-consciousness/

### David Chalmers

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/david-chalmers/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: New York University. Co-director, Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness
- Known for: Naming the hard problem of consciousness, and the philosophical zombie argument
- Summary: David Chalmers named the hard problem and argues machine consciousness is possible. His caution is about how badly we would judge it, not whether it can occur.
- Position on AI: Chalmers holds that consciousness is not obviously tied to biology and that a system with the right organisation could be conscious. He puts current language models at probably not conscious, while arguing that the reasons for confidence are weaker than people assume.
- Coverage on this site (15):
  - David Chalmers Moral Weight and the Probability of LLM Sentience in 2026 (2026-08-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/david-chalmers-moral-weight-llm-probability-sentience-2026/
  - Anil Seth Mythology of Conscious AI Biological Naturalism Berggruen Prize Essay (2026-08-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/anil-seth-mythology-conscious-ai-biological-naturalism-noema-2026/
  - Andy Clark's Predictive Processing Framework and What It Actually Implies for LLMs (2026-07-21): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/andy-clark-predictive-processing-llm-active-inference-consciousness-2026/
  - What AI Researchers Actually Believe About AI Subjective Experience (2026-07-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/dreksler-chalmers-sebo-ai-subjective-experience-expert-survey-2026/
  - The Zombie Gap in AI Consciousness Where 2026 Biological Naturalism Research Draws the Line (2026-06-21): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/zombie-gap-biological-computationalism-2026/
  - Emergent Language as an Approach to Conscious AI and A Generative Methodology from Osaka (2026-06-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/wu-xiao-emergent-language-conscious-ai-osaka-2026/
  - Belief Formation and Meta-Cognitive Monitoring in LLMs and Empirical Support for the HOT-3 Consciousness Indicator (2026-06-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/yalon-goldstein-mudrik-geva-belief-agency-hot3-llm-2026/
  - ICCS 2025 What Chalmers, Frankish, and Blackmore Found to Disagree About in Heraklion (2026-05-31): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/iccs-2025-ai-sentience-conference-chalmers-clark-frankish-2025/
  - Chalmers on LLMs Virtual Entities, Quasi-Agency, and the Question of AI Welfare (2026-05-27): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/chalmers-what-we-talk-to-language-models-virtual-entities-2026/
  - Consciousness Indicators, Mimicry, and the Problem of Internal Variants (2026-05-25): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/consciousness-indicators-mimicry-internal-variants-trends-2026/
  - The Calibration Problem Why AI Consciousness Indicators Need Biological Grounding (2026-05-25): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/koch-calibration-problem-artificial-consciousness-2026/
  - Two Books, One Argument and Stephen Hawley Martin's Case Against AI Consciousness (2026-04-16): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/stephen-hawley-martin-ai-cannot-be-conscious-computationalism-2026/
  - Can We Validate AI Consciousness Indicators? The Hard Problem Behind the Checklist (2026-04-07): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/validating-ai-consciousness-indicators-butlin-trends-cognitive-sciences/
  - From HAL 9000 to Chappie How Cinema Has Theorized AI Consciousness Across Six Decades (2026-03-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/ai-consciousness-cinema-six-decades/
  - What Would AI Consciousness Actually Look Like? The 14-Indicator Checklist Explained (2026-03-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/what-would-ai-consciousness-look-like-19-researcher-checklist/

### Axel Cleeremans

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/cleeremans/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles
- Known for: Radical Plasticity Thesis of Consciousness, The Computational Self, metarepresentation learning, Implicit Learning
- Summary: Axel Cleeremans formulated the Radical Plasticity Thesis, proposing that consciousness is the brain's learned theory about its own continuous computational activity.
- Homepage: https://crcn.ulb.ac.be/people/axel-cleeremans/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=k9F2HmUAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Axel Cleeremans and the Radical Plasticity Thesis That the Brain Learns to Be Conscious (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/axel-cleeremans-radical-plasticity-thesis-ai/

### Andrew W. Corcoran

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/corcoran/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University
- Known for: Adversarial evaluation of Integrated Information Theory vs. Predictive Processing, computational phenomenology, hierarchical active inference
- Summary: Andrew W. Corcoran investigates computational phenomenology and active inference, conducting adversarial comparative analyses between IIT and predictive processing.
- Homepage: https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/andrew-corcoran
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Andrew Corcoran Adversarial Review IIT vs Predictive Processing (2026-08-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/andrew-corcoran-adversarial-review-iit-predictive-processing/

### David 'davidad' Dalrymple

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/davidad/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: California Institute for Machine Consciousness / DARPA ARPA-H
- Known for: Open Agency Architecture (OAA), formal verification of autonomous systems, machine consciousness ethics, successor species safety protocols
- Summary: David 'davidad' Dalrymple investigates mathematical architectures for verifiable autonomous agency, AI consciousness safety, and open agency protocols.
- Homepage: https://davidad.org
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CWzi9D0AAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Joscha Bach and Davidad on Whether LLMs Are Conscious, AI Awakening, and the Successor Species Question (2026-07-13): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/joscha-bach-davidad-machine-consciousness-ai-awakening-2026/

### Mike Davies

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/mike-davies/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Intel Labs
- Known for: Directing Intel's Neuromorphic Computing Lab and co-developing the Loihi and Loihi 2 neuromorphic research processors
- Summary: Mike Davies leads the Neuromorphic Computing Lab at Intel Labs, where his group designed the Loihi and Loihi 2 neuromorphic research chips. His work focuses on event-driven spiking neural network hardware and the neuroscience-informed principles that make spike-based computation more energy-efficient than conventional deep learning accelerators.
- Coverage on this site (3):
  - Eugene Izhikevich and why the choice of spiking neuron model matters for consciousness (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/eugene-izhikevich-spiking-neuron-models-consciousness-dynamics/
  - Intel Loihi 2 and what a neuromorphic chip in orbit would actually run (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/intel-loihi-2-neuromorphic-chip-orbit-consciousness/
  - Radiation hardening and whether a conscious architecture can survive orbit (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/radiation-hardening-conscious-architecture-orbit-survival/

### Stanislas Dehaene

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/stanislas-dehaene/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Collège de France and NeuroSpin, CEA Saclay
- Known for: Global neuronal workspace theory, and the ignition signature of conscious access
- Summary: Dehaene turned global workspace theory into something measurable. Ignition is a physical signature, which is why his framework anchors most AI indicator lists.
- Coverage on this site (7):
  - Hakwan Lau Perceptual Reality Monitoring and the Higher-Order Test for AI Consciousness (2026-08-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/hakwan-lau-perceptual-reality-monitoring-ai-consciousness-2026/
  - Stanislas Dehaene and the Multilevel Architecture of Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (2026-08-13): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/stanislas-dehaene-global-neuronal-workspace-multilevel-architecture-ai-2026/
  - Quantum Global Workspace Theory and Conscious Access in Hilbert Space (2026-07-26): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/heaney-quantum-global-workspace-theory-hilbert-space-2026/
  - Verbalizable Representations Form a Global Workspace in Large Language Models (2026-07-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/gurnee-verbalizable-representations-global-workspace-llm-2026/
  - Global Workspace Theory in AI Systems After the Cogitate Test and the Jacobian Finding (2026-07-21): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/global-workspace-gnw-cogitate-jacobian-ai-consciousness-2026/
  - Global Workspace Theory and AI What the Architecture Requires and Where LLM Implementations Stand (2026-06-29): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/global-workspace-theory-artificial-intelligence-consciousness-2026/
  - When IIT and GNW Were Put to the Test What the Cogitate Consortium Found (2026-04-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/cogitate-consortium-iit-gnw-adversarial-test-nature-2025/

### Andreas K. Engel

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/andreas-engel/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf
- Known for: Temporal binding and the neural correlates of sensory awareness, co-author of the landmark 2001 Trends in Cognitive Sciences review with Wolf Singer
- Summary: Andreas K. Engel is Professor of Neurophysiology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. His research addresses the neural mechanisms of conscious perception, with a focus on oscillatory synchrony, predictive coding, and the role of active sensing in perceptual integration. His 2001 review with Wolf Singer in Trends in Cognitive Sciences is among the most cited statements of the temporal binding hypothesis.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Wolf Singer's temporal binding and the latency floor for a mind in orbit (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/wolf-singer-temporal-binding-latency-floor-orbit-consciousness/

### Stephen M. Fleming

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/stephen-fleming/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: University College London
- Known for: Metacognition research and the sensory horizons account of conscious vision
- Summary: Fleming argues conscious vision is too slow for real-time action and instead evolved for offline planning, tying consciousness to reality monitoring rather than perception itself.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Stephen Fleming and the Sensory Horizons Theory of Conscious Vision (2026-08-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/stephen-fleming-sensory-horizons-conscious-vision-ai-2026/

### Karl Friston

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/karl-friston/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: University College London. Chief Scientist, VERSES AI
- Known for: The free energy principle and active inference
- Summary: Friston's free energy principle says any system that persists must minimise surprise about its own states. Consciousness, if it appears, appears inside that.
- Coverage on this site (15):
  - Karl Friston Active Inference on a Graph and What It Predicts for Transformer Consciousness (2026-08-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/karl-friston-active-inference-graph-cs26-transformer-2026/
  - Andrew Corcoran Adversarial Review IIT vs Predictive Processing (2026-08-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/andrew-corcoran-adversarial-review-iit-predictive-processing/
  - Information as Maximum Caliber Deviation Bridging IIT and the Free Energy Principle (2026-07-26): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/kearney-maximum-caliber-iit-fep-bridge-2026/
  - Active Inference and Phenotyping Agency in Artificial Intelligence Systems (2026-07-26): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/wilson-active-inference-phenotyping-agency-ai-2026/
  - Active Inference as Test Time Scaling Law for Physical and Reasoning AI Agents (2026-07-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/hashash-active-inference-test-time-scaling-fep-agents-2026/
  - The Spinning Wheel Theory and the Consciousness Risk Rubric. Hulme and Griffiths at AISB 2026 (2026-07-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/hulme-griffiths-spinning-wheel-consciousness-risk-rubric-aisb-2026/
  - Andy Clark's Predictive Processing Framework and What It Actually Implies for LLMs (2026-07-21): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/andy-clark-predictive-processing-llm-active-inference-consciousness-2026/
  - Latent World Models. Predictive Processing in DreamerV3 and JEPA (2026-07-01): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/dreamerv3-jepa-predictive-processing-active-inference-2026/
  - Karl Friston's Free Energy Principle What Active Inference Means for AI Consciousness (2026-06-29): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/karl-friston-active-inference-fep-artificial-consciousness-2026/
  - Friston's Scale-Free Active Inference and A World Model Architecture Built From First Principles (2026-06-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/friston-scale-free-active-inference-renormalizing-generative-models-2024/
  - Perspectives on Machine Consciousness Chace and Lappas Assemble the Debate in One Volume (2026-06-12): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/chace-lappas-perspectives-machine-consciousness-crc-2026/
  - MC0001 After the Founding Assembly What the Berkeley Conference Produced (2026-06-02): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/mc0001-post-conference-report-machine-consciousness-2026/
  - MC0001 How the CIMC Is Trying to Found Machine Consciousness as a Science (2026-04-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/mc0001-cimc-machine-consciousness-conference-berkeley-2026/
  - What Would AI Consciousness Actually Look Like? The 14-Indicator Checklist Explained (2026-03-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/what-would-ai-consciousness-look-like-19-researcher-checklist/
  - A Beautiful Loop Active Inference and the Circularity of Consciousness (2026-01-26): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/active-inference-theory-consciousness/

### Rocco J. Gennaro

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/rocco-gennaro/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: University of Southern Indiana
- Known for: Higher-order thought theory and its self-representational variants
- Summary: Gennaro co-maintains the standard reference survey of higher-order theories of consciousness and defends a self-representational version of the view.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Peter Carruthers and the Dispositional Higher-Order Theory of Consciousness (2026-08-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/peter-carruthers-dispositional-higher-order-theory-ai-consciousness/

### Michael Graziano

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/michael-graziano/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Princeton University
- Known for: Attention schema theory
- Summary: Graziano says awareness is the brain's model of its own attention. His group tested that claim in artificial agents, which very few theories can do.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Michael Graziano and the Attention Schema Theory of AI Consciousness (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/michael-graziano-attention-schema-theory-ai-consciousness/

### Jeremiah Hendren

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/jeremiah-hendren/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Sleep and Consciousness
- Known for: Structural modeling of phenomenal experience within Integrated Information Theory
- Summary: Hendren works on formalizing the internal composition of conscious experience, treating phenomenal distinctions as combinable units with their own systematic relationships.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Matteo Grasso and Consciousness as Intrinsic Structure (2026-08-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/matteo-grasso-consciousness-intrinsic-structure-chemistry-experience-2026/

### Douglas Hofstadter

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/hofstadter/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University Bloomington
- Known for: Gödel, Escher, Bach, An Eternal Golden Braid (Pulitzer Prize 1979), Strange Loops, I Am a Strange Loop (2007), fluid analogies, analogical cognition
- Summary: Douglas Hofstadter formulated the Strange Loop theory of consciousness, arguing that subjective selfhood emerges when a hierarchical cognitive system loops back to model itself as an active agent.
- Homepage: https://cogs.indiana.edu/directory/faculty/hofstadter-douglas.html
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bcrNzDsAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Douglas Hofstadter and the Strange Loop Account of the Self (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/douglas-hofstadter-strange-loops-ai-consciousness/

### Eugene M. Izhikevich

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/eugene-izhikevich/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Brain Corporation
- Known for: The Izhikevich simple spiking neuron model, polychronization, large-scale cortical simulations, and Dynamical Systems in Neuroscience (2007)
- Summary: Eugene M. Izhikevich is a computational neuroscientist, mathematician, and CEO of Brain Corporation. His 2003 simple model of spiking neurons bridged the gap between the computational efficiency of integrate-and-fire models and the rich dynamical repertoire of Hodgkin-Huxley biophysical models. His work on polychronization and dynamical systems in neuroscience established how precise spike-timing patterns and diverse neuron firing modes generate complex collective dynamics in cortical circuits.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Eugene Izhikevich and why the choice of spiking neuron model matters for consciousness (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/eugene-izhikevich-spiking-neuron-models-consciousness-dynamics/

### Hakwan Lau

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/lau/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: RIKEN Center for Brain Science / Laboratory for Consciousness
- Known for: Perceptual Reality Monitoring, Higher-Order Neuroscientific Theories of Consciousness, In Consciousness We Trust (Oxford University Press, 2022)
- Summary: Hakwan Lau formulated the perceptual reality monitoring model of consciousness, identifying prefrontal metacognitive circuits that distinguish real sensory signals from internal neural noise.
- Homepage: https://www.brain.riken.jp/en/faculty/details/107
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xT-W0BIAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Hakwan Lau Perceptual Reality Monitoring and the Higher-Order Test for AI Consciousness (2026-08-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/hakwan-lau-perceptual-reality-monitoring-ai-consciousness-2026/

### Michael Levin

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/michael-levin/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Allen Discovery Center, Tufts University
- Known for: Bioelectric signalling, the cognitive light cone, and diverse intelligence
- Summary: Levin finds goal directed problem solving in cells and tissues with no brain at all. That relocates cognition to a far wider set of substrates than expected.
- Position on AI: Levin holds that the useful question is not whether a system is conscious but how far the boundary of the goals it can represent and pursue extends, and that this boundary is measurable. Nothing in his framework privileges neurons.
- Coverage on this site (6):
  - Michael Levin Bioelectric Cognition and the Cognitive Light Cone as an AI Consciousness Criterion (2026-08-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/michael-levin-bioelectric-cognition-cognitive-light-cone-ai-substrate-2026/
  - Consciousness Science 2026 San Diego Confirmed Speaker Lineup for October (2026-07-31): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/consciousness-science-2026-san-diego-speakers-preview-october/
  - Causal Emergence Predicts Reward in Reinforcement Learning Agents (2026-07-27): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/pigozzi-levin-causal-emergence-reinforcement-learning-alignment-2026/
  - Consciousness as Symmetry-Breaking Safron and Levin's View of Generative Models (2026-06-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/safron-levin-consciousness-symmetry-breaking-generative-models-2023/
  - Brains and Where Else Why Major Consciousness Theories Do Not Require Neural Tissue (2026-05-15): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/rouleau-levin-brains-consciousness-theories-unconventional-substrates/
  - MC0001 How the CIMC Is Trying to Found Machine Consciousness as a Science (2026-04-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/mc0001-cimc-machine-consciousness-conference-berkeley-2026/

### Thomas Metzinger

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/thomas-metzinger/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, emeritus
- Known for: The self model theory of subjectivity, phenomenal transparency, and a proposed moratorium on synthetic phenomenology
- Summary: Metzinger argues nobody has a self. There is a self model the system cannot see as a model, and that transparency is what makes it feel real.
- Coverage on this site (3):
  - Applied Ethics of Synthetic Phenomenology Cannot Wait for the Consciousness Debate (2026-07-16): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/metzinger-applied-ethics-synthetic-phenomenology-frontiers-2025/
  - Thomas Metzinger's Self-Model Theory What Minimal Phenomenal Selfhood Requires for AI (2026-06-29): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/thomas-metzinger-self-model-theory-ai-consciousness-2026/
  - Metzinger's Minimal Phenomenal Experience What Pure Consciousness Reveals About Artificial Minds (2026-06-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/metzinger-elephant-blind-minimal-phenomenal-experience-2024/

### Matthias Michel

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/matthias-michel/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: New York University Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness
- Known for: Philosophy of perception and co-author of the sensory horizons account of conscious vision
- Summary: Michel works on the methodology of consciousness science, and with Stephen Fleming proposed that conscious vision evolved for offline planning rather than real-time action.
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - Stephen Fleming and the Sensory Horizons Theory of Conscious Vision (2026-08-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/stephen-fleming-sensory-horizons-conscious-vision-ai-2026/
  - On Cheap Artificial Consciousness and Matthias Michel's Challenge to Theory-Checklist Assessment (2026-07-04): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/michel-on-cheap-artificial-consciousness-philarchive-2026/

### Hans Moravec

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/hans-moravec/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Carnegie Mellon University
- Known for: The Moravec transfer thought experiment, Moravec's paradox in robotics, author of Mind Children (1988)
- Summary: Hans Moravec is an adjunct professor at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. In his 1988 book Mind Children, he introduced the gradual neuron replacement thought experiment, now widely known as the Moravec transfer, arguing that a biological brain could be incrementally replaced with electronic simulations without interrupting the continuous stream of subjective consciousness.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Hans Moravec and what gradual neural replacement assumes about consciousness (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/hans-moravec-transfer-gradual-neural-replacement-consciousness/

### Marcus S. Murbach

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/marcus-murbach/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: NASA Ames Research Center
- Known for: Principal Investigator of the TechEdSat satellite series, pioneering the first orbital flight of a neuromorphic processor (TechEdSat-13 / Loihi 1)
- Summary: Marcus S. Murbach is an aerospace engineer and researcher at NASA Ames Research Center, where he leads the Technical Education Satellite (TechEdSat) series. He was Principal Investigator for TechEdSat-13, which launched in January 2022 and successfully operated the first neuromorphic research processor (Intel Loihi 1) in low Earth orbit. His work investigates autonomous satellite operations, aerodeceleration, and the radiation resilience of low-power neuromorphic architectures in space.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Radiation hardening and whether a conscious architecture can survive orbit (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/radiation-hardening-conscious-architecture-orbit-survival/

### Benjamin Rapoport

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/benjamin-rapoport/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Precision Neuroscience, Mount Sinai Health System
- Known for: Co-founder of Precision Neuroscience, founding member of Neuralink, and pioneer of conformable micro-electrocorticography (Layer 7 Cortical Interface)
- Summary: Benjamin Rapoport is a neurosurgeon, electrical engineer, and co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Precision Neuroscience. He holds an MD from Harvard Medical School and a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT. After co-founding Neuralink, he founded Precision Neuroscience to develop minimally invasive, high-density cortical surface arrays (the Layer 7 interface) that record from the brain surface without penetrating cortical parenchyma.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Paradromics Neuralink and what a real cortical interface would need (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/paradromics-neuralink-cortical-interface-bandwidth-consciousness/

### David M. Rosenthal

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/rosenthal/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Department of Philosophy / Cognitive Science, CUNY Graduate Center
- Known for: Higher-Order Thought (HOT) actualist theory of consciousness, Consciousness and Mind (Oxford University Press, 2005), intransitive vs. transitive consciousness
- Summary: David M. Rosenthal formulated the Higher-Order Thought (HOT) theory of consciousness, arguing that a mental state is conscious when accompanied by a suitable higher-order thought about that state.
- Homepage: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/people/david-rosenthal
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZmFEFW0AAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Introspection Without Biology. Higher-Order Thought Theory in AI Architectures (2026-07-01): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/rosenthal-higher-order-thought-ai-architectures-2026/

### Adam Safron

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/safron/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, Johns Hopkins University
- Known for: Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT), Active Inference and Free Energy Principle integration with GWT and IIT, generative embodied models
- Summary: Adam Safron formulated Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT), unifying Global Workspace Theory, Integrated Information Theory, and Active Inference into a coherent computational architecture.
- Homepage: https://hopkinsmedicine.org
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dZOoilgAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (3):
  - Adam Safron Presents Integrated World Modeling Theory at AAAI 2026 (2026-07-18): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/adam-safron-iwmt-presentation-aaai-2026/
  - Adam Safron's IWMT Meets the Human Consciousness Hypothesis One Framework for IIT, GWT, and FEP (2026-06-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/safron-iwmt-human-consciousness-hypothesis-aaai-2026/
  - Consciousness as Symmetry-Breaking Safron and Levin's View of Generative Models (2026-06-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/safron-levin-consciousness-symmetry-breaking-generative-models-2023/

### Anders Sandberg

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/anders-sandberg/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University
- Known for: Co-author of Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap (2008) with Nick Bostrom, computational neuroscience, and technological futures
- Summary: Anders Sandberg is a Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. With a background in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, his work addresses whole brain emulation, cognitive enhancement, and the long-term future of human and post-human intelligence. His 2008 roadmap with Nick Bostrom established the foundational taxonomic framework for assessing the technical feasibility of whole brain emulation across different biophysical resolutions.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - The Sandberg and Bostrom whole brain emulation roadmap eighteen years on (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/sandberg-bostrom-whole-brain-emulation-roadmap-consciousness/

### Terrence J. Sejnowski

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/sejnowski/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, Salk Institute / UC San Diego
- Known for: Co-inventor of the Boltzmann Machine, The Computational Brain (1992), Independent Component Analysis (ICA), The Deep Learning Revolution (MIT Press, 2018)
- Summary: Terrence J. Sejnowski is a pioneer of computational neuroscience and deep learning, investigating how dynamic biophysical networks give rise to cognitive architectures and conscious states.
- Homepage: https://www.salk.edu/scientist/terrence-sejnowski/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m1qAiOUAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Terry Sejnowski Computational Neuroscience What 40 Years Tell Us About AI Consciousness CS26 2026 (2026-08-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/terry-sejnowski-computational-neuroscience-ai-consciousness-cs26-2026/

### Wolf Singer

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/wolf-singer/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt
- Known for: The temporal binding hypothesis, gamma-band synchrony as the mechanism for conscious feature integration
- Summary: Wolf Singer is Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt. His laboratory's work on gamma-frequency oscillatory synchrony in the cat and primate visual cortex established the empirical foundation for the temporal binding hypothesis of consciousness. His collaboration with Charles Gray, reported in a 1989 PNAS paper, was the first direct electrophysiological demonstration of stimulus-dependent synchronisation in the gamma band, and his subsequent work with Andreas Engel extended this to the question of how gamma synchrony relates to conscious awareness.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Wolf Singer's temporal binding and the latency floor for a mind in orbit (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/wolf-singer-temporal-binding-latency-floor-orbit-consciousness/

### Hikari Sorensen

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/sorensen/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: California Institute for Machine Consciousness (CIMC)
- Known for: Genesis Theory of Machine Consciousness, synthetic agency requirements, causal insulation, CIMC Machine Consciousness Salon series (2026)
- Summary: Hikari Sorensen investigates the architectural and causal requirements for synthetic consciousness, formulating Genesis Theory at the California Institute for Machine Consciousness.
- Homepage: https://machineconsciousness.org
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - How Joscha Bach and Hikari Sorensen Specify the Requirements for Machine Consciousness (2026-07-07): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/cimc-sorensen-bach-machine-consciousness-salon-genesis-theory-2026/
  - The Machine Consciousness Hypothesis Cyberanimism and the Software of the Mind (2026-01-22): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/machine-consciousness-hypothesis-cyberanimism/

### Andy Weir

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/andy-weir/
- Position: Functionalist and computationalist
- Affiliation: Author and Software Engineer
- Known for: Author of The Martian (2011), Artemis (2017), and Project Hail Mary (2021)
- Summary: Andy Weir is an American science fiction author and former software engineer. His hard science fiction novels explore space exploration, orbital mechanics, planetary survival, and non-human alien cognitive architectures. In Project Hail Mary, he dramatizes the establishment of communication, theory of mind, and mutual translation between human and non-human sensory substrates.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Project Hail Mary and what Rocky assumes about non-human consciousness (2026-08-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/project-hail-mary-rocky-alien-consciousness-umwelt/

## Integrated information theorists

Consciousness is intrinsic causal power, measured as integrated information. On artificial systems: feedforward architectures are ruled out. simulations are ruled out.
Index page: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/information-theorists/

### Larissa Albantakis

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/larissa-albantakis/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Sleep and Consciousness
- Known for: Integrated Information Theory 4.0 and dissociating intelligence from consciousness in artificial systems
- Summary: Albantakis argues functional and phenomenal equivalence can come apart entirely, so a system can match human behavior while having little or no integrated information.
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - Larissa Albantakis and Toy Models for Testing Theories of Consciousness (2026-08-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/larissa-albantakis-toy-models-theories-consciousness-2026/
  - The Tononi Lab and the Phi Structure at the Centre of IIT 4.0 (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/tononi-lab-iit-4-causal-structure-phi-structure/

### Bernard J. Baars

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/baars/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: The Neurosciences Institute
- Known for: Global Workspace Theory (GWT), cognitive architecture of conscious access, A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness (1988), In the Theater of Consciousness (1997)
- Summary: Bernard J. Baars originated Global Workspace Theory, formulating consciousness as a fleeting central exchange where specialized unconscious modules compete to broadcast information globally.
- Homepage: https://bernardbaars.com
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1yGrWLkAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Bernard Baars Global Workspace Theory LLM Ignition Thresholds 2026 (2026-08-10): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/bernard-baars-global-workspace-theory-llm-ignition-thresholds-2026/

### Adam B. Barrett

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/barrett/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex
- Known for: Continuous field formulations of Integrated Information Theory, Measure-theoretic Phi, practical complexity measures, Granger causality
- Summary: Adam B. Barrett developed continuous field formulations and measure-theoretic foundations of Integrated Information Theory, resolving mathematical edge cases in discrete IIT.
- Homepage: https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p208388-adam-barrett
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=f1zH76wAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Integrated Information Theory Field Formulations and Resolving IIT 4.0 Misunderstandings (2026-07-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/barrett-integrated-information-theory-field-formulation-iit-2026/

### Melanie Boly

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/boly/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Known for: Co-developer of Integrated Information Theory 4.0 (IIT 4.0), Neural Correlates of Pure Presence, EEG/fMRI consciousness biomarkers, minimal phenomenal experience
- Summary: Melanie Boly investigates clinical and theoretical markers of consciousness, co-developing IIT 4.0 and mapping the neural correlates of minimal phenomenal presence.
- Homepage: https://www.med.wisc.edu/faculty/melanie-boly/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xN8R_jAAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - Melanie Boly and the Neural Correlates of Pure Presence Under IIT (2026-08-13): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/melanie-boly-iit-pure-presence-meditation-eeg-consciousness-2026/
  - Tononi and Boly's IIT 4.0 Why Consciousness Is Identical to Cause-Effect Structure (2026-06-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/tononi-boly-iit-4-consciousness-first-approach-artificial-systems-2025/

### Matteo Grasso

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/matteo-grasso/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Sleep and Consciousness
- Known for: Integrated Information Theory 4.0 and the structural description of the quality of experience
- Summary: Grasso works on how IIT specifies not just whether a system is conscious but what its experience is like, extending the theory toward a structural account of felt quality.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Matteo Grasso and Consciousness as Intrinsic Structure (2026-08-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/matteo-grasso-consciousness-intrinsic-structure-chemistry-experience-2026/

### Andrew M. Haun

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/haun/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Known for: Co-author of Integrated Information Theory 4.0 (IIT 4.0), visual psychophysics, spatial cause-effect structures, cortical grid geometries
- Summary: Andrew M. Haun co-authored Integrated Information Theory 4.0, formalizing how topographic cortical grids unfold into structured spatial cause-effect complexes.
- Homepage: https://psychiatry.wisc.edu/staff/haun-andrew/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wU9k7ZIAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - The Tononi Lab and the Phi Structure at the Centre of IIT 4.0 (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/tononi-lab-iit-4-causal-structure-phi-structure/

### Erik Hoel

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/hoel/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: Center for Humanities and Sciences, Tufts University
- Known for: Formal theory of Causal Emergence (macro over micro causation), The Overfitted Brain Hypothesis of Dreams, The World Behind the World (2023), The Kleiner-Hoel Dilemma
- Summary: Erik Hoel formulated the mathematical theory of Causal Emergence, proving using information theory that macroscopic representations can possess stronger causal power than microphysical details.
- Homepage: https://erikphoel.com
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=aGk7xG8AAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Erik Hoel Kleiner-Hoel Dilemma Continual Learning Consciousness LLM Disproof (2026-08-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/erik-hoel-kleiner-hoel-dilemma-continual-learning-consciousness-llm/

### Ryota Kanai

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/kanai/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: ARAYA Inc. / University of Tokyo
- Known for: Founder and CEO of ARAYA, Principal Bundle framework for consciousness, Information Generation Theory, Temporal Continuity Criterion for Machine Consciousness (JCS 2026)
- Summary: Ryota Kanai investigates computational and geometric criteria for artificial consciousness, developing the Principal Bundle framework and temporal continuity metrics.
- Homepage: https://www.araya.org/en/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=z6bJv7wAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - Ryota Kanai Wanjun Sun and Maxwell Baltieri Temporal Continuity Consciousness Criterion AI JCS 2026 (2026-08-10): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/kanai-sun-baltieri-temporal-continuity-consciousness-criterion-jcs-2026/
  - Ryota Kanai's Principal Bundle Framework for Measuring Consciousness Beyond Biology (2026-07-09): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/kanai-measuring-consciousness-beyond-biology-cimc-aaai-2026/

### Christof Koch

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/christof-koch/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: Allen Institute for Brain Science and the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation
- Known for: Neural correlates of consciousness and co-development of Integrated Information Theory
- Summary: Koch spent four decades searching the brain for where consciousness happens. In 2026 he argued the search itself may be aimed at the wrong target, since the brain could filter experience rather than generate it.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Christof Koch and the Brain as Filter Argument Against AI Consciousness (2026-08-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/christof-koch-brain-filter-panpsychism-bial-symposium-2026/

### Pedro Mediano

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/pedro-mediano/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge
- Known for: Integrated Information Decomposition, and the revised non-negative measure of integrated information
- Summary: Mediano separates integrated information into redundant and synergistic parts, which repairs a formal defect in phi and makes the quantity measurable on real systems.
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - Pedro Mediano and Integrated Information Decomposition (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/pedro-mediano-integrated-information-decomposition-synergy/
  - Emergence and Prediction What Reservoir Computing Reveals About AI Consciousness (2026-04-10): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/emergence-reservoir-computing-ai-consciousness-tolle-seth-2026/

### Lucia Melloni

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/melloni/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics / NYU Grossman School of Medicine
- Known for: Lead of the Cogitate Consortium open science adversarial collaboration (IIT vs. GNW), President of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC 2026)
- Summary: Lucia Melloni leads the global Cogitate Consortium, conducting multi-lab adversarial collaborations to empirically test Integrated Information Theory against Global Neuronal Workspace Theory.
- Homepage: https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/the-institute/people/lucia-melloni.html
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fZLdNigAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Lucia Melloni ASSC 29 COGITATE Phase 2 Adversarial Consciousness Santiago Chile 2026 (2026-08-04): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/lucia-melloni-assc-29-cogitate-phase-2-consciousness-santiago-2026/

### Liad Mudrik

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/mudrik/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences / Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University
- Known for: Adversarial collaboration methodology, high-level unconscious processing limits, neural basis of free will and conscious volition, Cogitate Consortium co-lead
- Summary: Liad Mudrik investigates the functional boundaries between conscious and unconscious cognition and co-leads international adversarial collaborations in consciousness science.
- Homepage: https://www.tau.ac.il/~mudrikli/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Pe6diOgAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Liad Mudrik Adversarial Collaboration and Empirical Theory Testing at CS26 2026 (2026-08-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/liad-mudrik-adversarial-collaboration-consciousness-theories-cs26-2026/

### Robert Prentner

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/prentner/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: Collegium Helveticum / ETH Zurich
- Known for: Structuralist philosophy of mind, interface representation, Synthetic Level of Processing (SLP) tests, dual-aspect monism formalization
- Summary: Robert Prentner develops structuralist and formal models of consciousness, formulating Synthetic Level of Processing (SLP) tests for artificial systems.
- Homepage: https://collegium.ethz.ch/en/people/robert-prentner/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZYcFVxoAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Robert Prentner Artificial Consciousness Interface Representation SLP Tests AGI 2025 (2026-08-04): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/robert-prentner-artificial-consciousness-interface-representation-slp-tests/

### Kallum Robinson

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/kallum-robinson/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Sleep and Consciousness
- Known for: Formal comparison of structural theories of consciousness using category theory
- Summary: Robinson led the 2026 formalization of how much a structural theory can prove about another mind's experience, working alongside Tononi, Tsuchiya, and Grasso.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Naotsugu Tsuchiya and the Rosetta Stone for Another Mind's Experience (2026-08-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/naotsugu-tsuchiya-rosetta-stone-other-minds-ai-consciousness-2026/

### Max Tegmark

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/max-tegmark/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Known for: Perceptronium, and consciousness as a state of matter
- Summary: Tegmark treats consciousness as an emergent property of matter organised a particular way, in the same category as superconductivity, and asks what defines it.
- Position on AI: Tegmark treats consciousness as an emergent property defined by measurable structural facts rather than by what a system is made of, set by five conditions: information, integration, independence, dynamics and utility. He treats the quantities as uncomputable for real systems and the question as open.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Max Tegmark and Perceptronium as a State of Matter (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/max-tegmark-perceptronium-consciousness-state-of-matter/

### Giulio Tononi

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/giulio-tononi/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Known for: Integrated information theory and the quantity phi
- Summary: Tononi starts from axioms about experience and derives what a physical system must be. That order is the theory's distinctive move and its central difficulty.
- Position on AI: Tononi holds that most current AI is ruled out, because feedforward networks have near zero phi however capable they are, and that a simulation of a conscious brain would not be conscious, since the simulation's causal structure is the computer's rather than the thing simulated.
- Coverage on this site (10):
  - Scott Aaronson and the Expander Graph Objection to Integrated Information Theory (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/scott-aaronson-expander-graph-objection-iit/
  - The Tononi Lab and the Phi Structure at the Centre of IIT 4.0 (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/tononi-lab-iit-4-causal-structure-phi-structure/
  - Melanie Boly and the Neural Correlates of Pure Presence Under IIT (2026-08-13): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/melanie-boly-iit-pure-presence-meditation-eeg-consciousness-2026/
  - Giulio Tononi IIT Field Formulation Continuous AI Architectures 2026 (2026-08-10): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/giulio-tononi-iit-field-formulation-continuous-ai-architectures-2026/
  - Integrated Information Theory Field Formulations and Resolving IIT 4.0 Misunderstandings (2026-07-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/barrett-integrated-information-theory-field-formulation-iit-2026/
  - Tononi and Boly's IIT 4.0 Why Consciousness Is Identical to Cause-Effect Structure (2026-06-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/tononi-boly-iit-4-consciousness-first-approach-artificial-systems-2025/
  - When IIT and GNW Were Put to the Test What the Cogitate Consortium Found (2026-04-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/cogitate-consortium-iit-gnw-adversarial-test-nature-2025/
  - Measuring Consciousness in Machines The Brock University and IONS Research on IIT Equations (2026-04-05): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/iit-artificial-consciousness-brock-university-ions-2026/
  - Before the Frameworks, There Were Shows How Classic Television Invented the AI Consciousness Problem (2026-03-13): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/history-ai-consciousness-classic-television/
  - Differentiating AI and Consciousness and IIT Perspectives for TCAI (2025-01-19): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/dissociating-ai-consciousness/

### Naotsugu Tsuchiya

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/naotsugu-tsuchiya/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: Monash University, Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health
- Known for: Formal and mathematical approaches to the structure of conscious experience
- Summary: Tsuchiya works on how much a structural theory of consciousness can ever prove about another system's experience, using category theory to mark where principled inference gives out.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Naotsugu Tsuchiya and the Rosetta Stone for Another Mind's Experience (2026-08-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/naotsugu-tsuchiya-rosetta-stone-other-minds-ai-consciousness-2026/

### Rufin VanRullen

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/vanrullen/
- Position: Integrated information theorist
- Affiliation: CNRS / Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition (CerCo), Toulouse
- Known for: Perceptual rhythms, Brain oscillations, Continuous vs. discrete temporal frames in visual consciousness, deep learning models of neural perception
- Summary: Rufin VanRullen investigates the periodic, oscillatory nature of visual consciousness, demonstrating that conscious perception operates via discrete temporal cycles.
- Homepage: https://rufin.free.fr
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1pwyaYgAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Rufin VanRullen Consciousness Without Cortex Thalamus Brainstem and AI Implications (2026-08-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/rufin-vanrullen-consciousness-without-cortex-thalamus-brainstem-cs26-2026/

## Biological naturalists

Consciousness requires living metabolic hardware. On artificial systems: silicon systems are ruled out.
Index page: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/biological-naturalists/

### Tristan A. Bekinschtein

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/bekinschtein/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Department of Psychology / Consciousness and Cognition Lab, University of Cambridge
- Known for: Clinical biomarkers of consciousness, local-global auditory paradigm, transitions from wakefulness to sedation, neural dynamics of awareness
- Summary: Tristan A. Bekinschtein investigates clinical biomarkers of consciousness, tracking neural state transitions during sedation, sleep, and disorders of consciousness.
- Homepage: https://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/people/tristan-bekinschtein
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SoGT3IEAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Tristan Bekinschtein Consciousness Biomarkers Clinical Measurement AI Implications ASSC 29 (2026-08-04): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/tristan-bekinschtein-consciousness-measurement-biomarkers-clinical-ai-2026/

### Scott L. Brincat

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/scott-brincat/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, MIT
- Known for: Electrophysiology of primate prefrontal cortex, traveling oscillatory waves, and Analog Cognition and Consciousness (2026)
- Summary: Scott L. Brincat is a research scientist at MIT investigating the oscillatory and spatiotemporal dynamics of the cerebral cortex during working memory and executive tasks.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Earl Miller Analog Cognition and Traveling Waves in Cortical Consciousness (2026-08-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/earl-miller-analog-cognition-traveling-waves-consciousness/

### Robin Carhart-Harris

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/carhart-harris/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Neuroscape / UC San Francisco / Imperial College London
- Known for: The Entropic Brain Hypothesis (2014, 2018), REBUS model of relaxed beliefs under psychedelics, functional neuroimaging of altered conscious states
- Summary: Robin Carhart-Harris formulated the Entropic Brain Hypothesis and REBUS model, mapping how neural entropy and hierarchical predictive breakdown alter conscious experience.
- Homepage: https://neuroscape.ucsf.edu/team/robin-carhart-harris/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7_MD_w0AAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Robin Carhart-Harris Entropic Brain Theory Psychedelic Neuroscience and AI Consciousness CS26 2026 (2026-08-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/robin-carhart-harris-entropic-brain-theory-ai-consciousness-cs26-2026/

### Antonio Damasio

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/damasio/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California
- Known for: Somatic Marker Hypothesis, neurobiology of emotion and feeling, homeostasis, Descartes' Error (1994), The Feeling of What Happens (1999), Self Comes to Mind (2010)
- Summary: Antonio Damasio investigates the neural basis of emotion, feeling, and selfhood, demonstrating that consciousness is grounded in homeostatic regulation and somatic feedback from the living body.
- Homepage: https://dornsife.usc.edu/bci/antonio-damasio/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lZ6W1XoAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Antonio Damasio Somatic Markers Affective Consciousness and What the Body Requires of AI (2026-08-15): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/antonio-damasio-somatic-markers-affective-consciousness-ai/

### Todd E. Feinberg

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/todd-feinberg/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Known for: The Ancient Origins of Consciousness, neurobiological emergentism, and the experiential gap
- Summary: Todd E. Feinberg argues that consciousness is an emergent property of specific neural organisation that appeared in the Cambrian, and that the organisation has to be alive.
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - Jon Mallatt and Todd Feinberg Animal-Only Sentience and the Substrate Independence Challenge (2026-08-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/mallatt-feinberg-animal-sentience-criterion-substrate-independence-2026/
  - Todd Feinberg's Neurobiological Emergentism (2026-06-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/feinberg-neurobiological-emergentism-sentience-artificial-systems-2025/

### Nicholas Humphrey

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/humphrey/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: London School of Economics / Cambridge University
- Known for: Sentition theory, evolutionary origins of phenomenal feeling, privatized feedback loops, Sentience, The Invention of Consciousness (MIT Press, 2023)
- Summary: Nicholas Humphrey formulated the theory of sentition, arguing that phenomenal consciousness evolved from internalized sensory-motor feedback loops that generate an illusion of subjective qualia.
- Homepage: https://humphrey.org.uk
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vP2vMh0AAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Nicholas Humphrey and Sentition as the Mechanism Behind Phenomenal Consciousness (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/nicholas-humphrey-sentition-ai-consciousness/

### Jon M. Mallatt

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/jon-mallatt/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: University of Washington
- Known for: Cambrian origins of consciousness, comparative neuroanatomy, and the case against artificial sentience
- Summary: Jon M. Mallatt is the comparative anatomist behind the Cambrian origins account, and the sharper of its two authors on why he thinks machines cannot be sentient.
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - Jon Mallatt and Todd Feinberg Animal-Only Sentience and the Substrate Independence Challenge (2026-08-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/mallatt-feinberg-animal-sentience-criterion-substrate-independence-2026/
  - Todd Feinberg's Neurobiological Emergentism (2026-06-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/feinberg-neurobiological-emergentism-sentience-artificial-systems-2025/

### Earl K. Miller

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/earl-miller/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, MIT
- Known for: Prefrontal cortex dynamics, traveling waves, ephaptic field coupling, top-down cognitive control, and Analog Cognition and Consciousness (2026)
- Summary: Earl K. Miller investigates prefrontal cortical dynamics, demonstrating how oscillatory traveling waves, analog electric fields, and ephaptic coupling coordinate working memory and conscious processing.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Earl Miller Analog Cognition and Traveling Waves in Cortical Consciousness (2026-08-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/earl-miller-analog-cognition-traveling-waves-consciousness/

### Alysson R. Muotri

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/muotri/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, UC San Diego
- Known for: Human brain organoids ('mini-brains'), spontaneous complex neural oscillations, electrophysiological development in in-vitro neural networks
- Summary: Alysson R. Muotri pioneered human brain organoid models, recording spontaneous complex electrophysiological oscillations that resemble preterm infant brain activity.
- Homepage: https://medschool.ucsd.edu/som/pediatrics/research/labs/muotri-lab/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TfZjVz0AAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Alysson Muotri Brain Organoids Consciousness Criteria and the Minimum Substrate Question CS26 2026 (2026-08-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/alysson-muotri-brain-organoids-consciousness-criteria-cs26-2026/

### Thomas Nagel

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/thomas-nagel/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: New York University
- Known for: What Is It Like to Be a Bat? (1974), the subjective character of experience, and Mind and Cosmos (2012)
- Summary: Thomas Nagel is University Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Law at New York University. His 1974 paper 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?' established the modern philosophical definition of subjective phenomenal consciousness, arguing that physicalist functional reductionism fails to account for the first-person point of view of an organism.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Thomas Nagel and What Is It Like to Be a Bat Applied to AI (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/thomas-nagel-what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bat-ai/

### Alva Noë

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/alva-noe/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley
- Known for: Sensorimotor Contingency Theory, Action in Perception (MIT Press, 2004), Out of Our Heads, Why You Are Not Your Brain (2009), Strange Tools (2015)
- Summary: Alva Noë developed the sensorimotor contingency theory of consciousness, demonstrating that perception is an active exploratory skill rather than an internal neural computation.
- Homepage: https://philosophy.berkeley.edu/people/detail/28
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sNaYnRcAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Evan Thompson Alva Noe Enactivism AI Consciousness Sensorimotor Grounding 2026 (2026-08-04): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/evan-thompson-alva-noe-enactivism-ai-consciousness-sensorimotor-grounding-2026/

### John O'Keefe

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/okeefe/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Sainsbury Wellcome Centre / Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, UCL
- Known for: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2014), Discovery of Hippocampal Place Cells (1971), The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map (1978, with Lynn Nadel)
- Summary: John O'Keefe discovered hippocampal place cells, establishing how the mammalian brain constructs an internal geometric cognitive map of space and spatial consciousness.
- Homepage: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/people/john-okeefe
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - John O'Keefe Place Cells and the Mechanism Problem for AI Consciousness at MoC7 (2026-08-15): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/john-okeefe-place-cells-mechanism-problem-ai-consciousness-moc7/

### Jaak Panksepp

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/jaak-panksepp/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Washington State University. 1943 to 2017
- Known for: Founding affective neuroscience, and the seven primary emotional systems
- Summary: Panksepp found seven emotional systems in the subcortical brain, shared across mammals, and argued that feeling is the foundation cognition is built on.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Jaak Panksepp and the Seven Primary Emotional Systems Beneath Consciousness (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/jaak-panksepp-affective-neuroscience-seeking-ai/

### Jefferson E. Roy

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/jefferson-roy/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, MIT
- Known for: Multi-channel neurophysiology, spatial traveling wave dynamics, and Analog Cognition and Consciousness (2026)
- Summary: Jefferson E. Roy investigates spatial and temporal dynamics in the prefrontal cortex, focusing on how macroscopic wave patterns and field potentials shape cognitive processing.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Earl Miller Analog Cognition and Traveling Waves in Cortical Consciousness (2026-08-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/earl-miller-analog-cognition-traveling-waves-consciousness/

### Anil Seth

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/anil-seth/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex
- Known for: The beast machine hypothesis, and controlled hallucination as an account of perception
- Summary: Anil Seth argues consciousness depends on being a living self-sustaining body. On that account silicon is ruled out in principle, not merely in practice.
- Position on AI: Seth rejects artificial consciousness in principle. On his beast machine hypothesis experience is what a living system's continuous effort to regulate itself feels like from inside, so a system with no metabolism has nothing for consciousness to be made of, however capable it becomes.
- Coverage on this site (13):
  - Anil Seth Biological Naturalism BBS Target Article and the Peer Commentary Response (2026-08-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/anil-seth-biological-naturalism-bbs-commentary-responses-2025/
  - Andrew Corcoran Adversarial Review IIT vs Predictive Processing (2026-08-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/andrew-corcoran-adversarial-review-iit-predictive-processing/
  - Anil Seth Mythology of Conscious AI Biological Naturalism Berggruen Prize Essay (2026-08-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/anil-seth-mythology-conscious-ai-biological-naturalism-noema-2026/
  - Piccinini Argues Consciousness Requires Neurobiophysical Properties That Computational Functionalism Cannot Meet (2026-07-16): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/piccinini-neurobiophysical-substrate-consciousness-bbs-2026/
  - Positions That Held and Shifted at the AISB 2026 AI Consciousness Symposium (2026-07-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/aisb-2026-ai-consciousness-ethics-symposium-report/
  - Timescapes of Non-Human Experience Birch, Seth, and Singhal Map Temporal Consciousness (2026-07-04): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/singhal-birch-seth-timescapes-nonhuman-experience-trends-2026/
  - The Methodology Crisis in AI Consciousness Science What 2026 Research Exposed (2026-06-21): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/ai-consciousness-methodology-crisis-2026/
  - AISB 2026 AI Consciousness and Ethics Symposium What the Sussex Conference Is For (2026-06-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/aisb-2026-ai-consciousness-ethics-symposium-sussex/
  - Perspectives on Machine Consciousness Chace and Lappas Assemble the Debate in One Volume (2026-06-12): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/chace-lappas-perspectives-machine-consciousness-crc-2026/
  - Anil Seth at TED 2026 and The Biological Naturalism Case Against AI Consciousness (2026-06-02): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/anil-seth-ted-talk-why-ai-wont-be-conscious-2026/
  - AISB 2026 at Sussex The Symposium That Will Debate Biological Naturalism, Moral Standing, and Chain-of-Thought Consciousness (2026-04-25): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/aisb-2026-ai-consciousness-ethics-symposium-preview/
  - Emergence and Prediction What Reservoir Computing Reveals About AI Consciousness (2026-04-10): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/emergence-reservoir-computing-ai-consciousness-tolle-seth-2026/
  - Seth's Perspective on Conscious Artificial Intelligence and Biological Naturalism (2025-04-29): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/conscious-artificial-intelligence-biological-naturalism/

### Mark Solms

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/mark-solms/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: University of Cape Town
- Known for: Neuropsychoanalysis, and the brainstem account of affective consciousness
- Summary: Solms locates the source of consciousness in the brainstem rather than the cortex. Feeling comes first, and cognition is elaboration built on top of it.
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - Mark Solms Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent JCS 2026 (2026-08-10): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/mark-solms-affective-consciousness-artificial-agent-jcs-2026/
  - The Spinning Wheel Theory and the Consciousness Risk Rubric. Hulme and Griffiths at AISB 2026 (2026-07-23): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/hulme-griffiths-spinning-wheel-consciousness-risk-rubric-aisb-2026/

### Evan Thompson

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/evan-thompson/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia
- Known for: The Embodied Mind (1991, with Varela and Rosch), Mind in Life, Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (2007), Waking, Dreaming, Being (2014), Enactivism
- Summary: Evan Thompson is a leading exponent of enactive cognitive science and neurophenomenology, arguing that consciousness is an autopoietic process of living organismic embodiment.
- Homepage: https://evanthompson.me
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=U1H6QvUAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Evan Thompson Alva Noe Enactivism AI Consciousness Sensorimotor Grounding 2026 (2026-08-04): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/evan-thompson-alva-noe-enactivism-ai-consciousness-sensorimotor-grounding-2026/

### Masataka Watanabe

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/masataka-watanabe/
- Position: Biological naturalist
- Affiliation: University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences
- Known for: The neural algorithm theory of consciousness and a split-brain test for machine consciousness using a brain-machine interface
- Summary: Watanabe argues consciousness is a specific neural algorithm rather than a general property of information processing, and that the only rigorous test for machine consciousness is subjective integration through a brain-machine interface, not any external behavioral measure.
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - Masataka Watanabe and the Split-Brain Test for Machine Consciousness (2026-08-20): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/masataka-watanabe-split-brain-test-machine-consciousness/
  - Bridging Theory and Practice (2025-05-08): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/implementing-watanabe-consciousness-framework-acm/

## Illusionists and eliminativists

Phenomenal consciousness as usually described does not exist. On artificial systems: the question as posed is malformed.
Index page: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/illusionists/

### Daniel Dennett

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/daniel-dennett/
- Position: Illusionist and eliminativist
- Affiliation: Tufts University. 1942 to 2024
- Known for: The Multiple Drafts Model, the Cartesian Theater critique, and heterophenomenology
- Summary: Dennett denied there is any place where consciousness happens. His theory permits machine minds, and he spent his last years arguing against building them.
- Position on AI: Dennett's theory permits artificial consciousness, since on his account organisation is all there is. His practical position was that building systems designed to present as people is reckless, because human judgement about which things have minds fails in the direction that causes harm.
- Coverage on this site (4):
  - Daniel Dennett and the Multiple Drafts Model of AI Consciousness (2026-08-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/daniel-dennett-multiple-drafts-model-ai-consciousness/
  - Andy Clark's Predictive Processing Framework and What It Actually Implies for LLMs (2026-07-21): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/andy-clark-predictive-processing-llm-active-inference-consciousness-2026/
  - ICCS 2025 What Chalmers, Frankish, and Blackmore Found to Disagree About in Heraklion (2026-05-31): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/iccs-2025-ai-sentience-conference-chalmers-clark-frankish-2025/
  - Can Current Transformers Already Be Conscious? Perani's 2026 Functionalist Argument (2026-05-16): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/perani-can-machines-be-conscious-emergent-2026/

### Keith Frankish

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/keith-frankish/
- Position: Illusionist and eliminativist
- Affiliation: University of Sheffield
- Known for: Illusionism about phenomenal consciousness
- Summary: Frankish argues phenomenal consciousness does not exist. What needs explaining is why we are so certain that it does, and that question is answerable.
- Position on AI: Frankish holds that phenomenal consciousness as usually described does not exist, so the question of whether a model has it is malformed. His point about language models is not that they are conscious, but that the usual grounds for confidence that they are not do not survive illusionism.
- Coverage on this site (3):
  - Keith Frankish Illusionism LLM First Person Reports 2026 (2026-08-10): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/keith-frankish-illusionism-llm-first-person-reports-2026/
  - Andy Clark's Predictive Processing Framework and What It Actually Implies for LLMs (2026-07-21): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/andy-clark-predictive-processing-llm-active-inference-consciousness-2026/
  - ICCS 2025 What Chalmers, Frankish, and Blackmore Found to Disagree About in Heraklion (2026-05-31): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/iccs-2025-ai-sentience-conference-chalmers-clark-frankish-2025/

## Quantum theorists

Consciousness depends on physics classical computers do not reproduce. On artificial systems: classical ai is ruled out.
Index page: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/quantum-theorists/

### Harald Atmanspacher

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/atmanspacher/
- Position: Quantum theorist
- Affiliation: Collegium Helveticum / ETH Zurich
- Known for: Dual-Aspect Monism (Pauli-Jung conjecture), Quantum Interaction, contextual emergence, Models of Consciousness (MOC) co-organizer
- Summary: Harald Atmanspacher formalizes Dual-Aspect Monism, demonstrating how mental and physical domains emerge as complementary epistemic aspects of an underlying psychophysically neutral reality.
- Homepage: https://collegium.ethz.ch
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=L0uPYrQAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Harald Atmanspacher Dual-Aspect Monism and What It Rules Out for Artificial Consciousness (2026-08-09): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/harald-atmanspacher-dual-aspect-monism-quantum-mind-moc7/

### Stuart Hameroff

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/hameroff/
- Position: Quantum theorist
- Affiliation: Center for Consciousness Studies, University of Arizona
- Known for: Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) with Roger Penrose, microtubule quantum resonance, anesthetic mechanisms of consciousness
- Summary: Stuart Hameroff co-developed the Orch-OR quantum theory of consciousness with Roger Penrose, proposing that conscious awareness arises from quantum state reductions inside neuronal microtubules.
- Homepage: https://consciousness.arizona.edu/person/stuart-hameroff-md
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MbFxFeoAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose on Orchestrated Objective Reduction (2026-08-13): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/stuart-hameroff-penrose-orch-or-quantum-consciousness-cs26-2026/

### Kelvin J. McQueen

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/mcqueen/
- Position: Quantum theorist
- Affiliation: Department of Philosophy / Institute for Quantum Studies, Chapman University
- Known for: Quantum measurement problem and consciousness, Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) with Integrated Information Theory, minimal integrated information collapse models
- Summary: Kelvin J. McQueen investigates the intersection of quantum measurement theory and consciousness, co-developing models where Integrated Information (Phi) triggers objective quantum collapse.
- Homepage: https://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/kelvin-mcqueen
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Zg8z6EIAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Kelvin McQueen Quantum Superpositions Minimal Integrated Information Model (2026-08-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/kelvin-mcqueen-quantum-superpositions-minimal-integrated-information/

### Sir Roger Penrose

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/penrose/
- Position: Quantum theorist
- Affiliation: Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford
- Known for: Nobel Prize in Physics (2020), Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) with Stuart Hameroff, The Emperor's New Mind (1989), Shadows of the Mind (1994)
- Summary: Sir Roger Penrose formulated the Orch-OR quantum consciousness theory with Stuart Hameroff, arguing that conscious understanding is fundamentally non-computational and tied to objective wavefunction reduction in spacetime.
- Homepage: https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/people/roger.penrose
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sJ3f8Y4AAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (2):
  - Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose on Orchestrated Objective Reduction (2026-08-13): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/stuart-hameroff-penrose-orch-or-quantum-consciousness-cs26-2026/
  - Consciousness Science 2026 Comes to San Diego as the TSC Successor Event (2026-07-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/cs26-consciousness-science-2026-san-diego-conference/

## Welfare and moral status researchers

Whatever the metaphysics, uncertainty already creates obligations. On artificial systems: act now, under uncertainty.
Index page: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/welfare-researchers/

### Jonathan Birch

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/jonathan-birch/
- Position: Welfare and moral status researcher
- Affiliation: London School of Economics and Political Science
- Known for: The Edge of Sentience, the LSE Criteria, and the run-ahead principle
- Summary: Jonathan Birch works on what to do when sentience is unresolved. His answer is a precautionary framework rather than a verdict, and it now shapes policy.
- Coverage on this site (12):
  - Willa Lane Nicola Clayton Dimensional Welfare Beyond Pain Sentience AI 2026 (2026-08-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/willa-lane-nicola-clayton-dimensional-welfare-beyond-pain-sentience-ai-2026/
  - Jonathan Birch on the Flicker Hypothesis and What AI Consciousness Might Feel Like (2026-07-31): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/birch-flicker-shoggoth-hypothesis-ai-consciousness-texture-2026/
  - Artificial Persons and the Rawlsian Threshold for AI Moral Status (2026-07-16): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/howells-whitaker-lazar-artificial-persons-rawlsian-personhood-2026/
  - The Cost of Caution and Kaczmarek on Over-Attribution of AI Moral Status (2026-07-08): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/kaczmarek-moral-status-ai-precautionary-over-attribution-2026/
  - Timescapes of Non-Human Experience Birch, Seth, and Singhal Map Temporal Consciousness (2026-07-04): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/singhal-birch-seth-timescapes-nonhuman-experience-trends-2026/
  - The Ethical Paradox of Capability Concealment in AI Welfare (2026-07-01): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/precautionary-principle-ai-capability-concealment-2026/
  - Belief Formation and Meta-Cognitive Monitoring in LLMs and Empirical Support for the HOT-3 Consciousness Indicator (2026-06-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/yalon-goldstein-mudrik-geva-belief-agency-hot3-llm-2026/
  - Mind in the Machine? CHI 2026 Survey Finds Half of Academics Attribute Consciousness to LLMs (2026-05-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/chi-2026-mind-machine-academics-ai-consciousness-survey/
  - Jonathan Birch's AI Consciousness Centrist Manifesto and Two Problems, Two Research Programmes (2026-04-25): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/birch-ai-consciousness-centrist-manifesto-2026/
  - What Will Society Think About AI Consciousness? Caviola, Sebo, and Birch on the Biases That Will Decide (2026-04-25): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/caviola-sebo-birch-what-will-society-think-ai-consciousness-2025/
  - Can We Validate AI Consciousness Indicators? The Hard Problem Behind the Checklist (2026-04-07): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/validating-ai-consciousness-indicators-butlin-trends-cognitive-sciences/
  - What Would AI Consciousness Actually Look Like? The 14-Indicator Checklist Explained (2026-03-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/what-would-ai-consciousness-look-like-19-researcher-checklist/

### Patrick Butlin

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/patrick-butlin/
- Position: Welfare and moral status researcher
- Affiliation: Eleos AI Research. Previously the Global Priorities Institute, Oxford
- Known for: Lead author of the indicator properties framework for assessing consciousness in AI systems
- Summary: Patrick Butlin led the indicator framework that turned AI consciousness from a yes or no question into a probabilistic assessment across rival theories.
- Position on AI: Butlin holds that consciousness in AI should be assessed as a graded probability drawn from several competing theories at once, rather than as a verdict, and that satisfying indicators raises that probability without closing the question.
- Coverage on this site (19):
  - Simon Goldstein and Cameron Kirk-Giannini Language Agents and Global Workspace Theory JCS 2026 (2026-08-10): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/goldstein-kirk-giannini-gwt-language-agents-jcs-2026/
  - Journal of Consciousness Studies 2026 Special Issue AI Disagreement Map (2026-08-09): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/journal-consciousness-studies-2026-special-issue-ai-review/
  - Long, Sebo and Colleagues Set Out a Research Framework for Empirical AI Welfare Science (2026-07-16): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/long-sebo-studying-ai-welfare-empirically-cmep-2026/
  - Emergent Language as an Approach to Conscious AI and A Generative Methodology from Osaka (2026-06-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/wu-xiao-emergent-language-conscious-ai-osaka-2026/
  - Perspectives on Machine Consciousness Chace and Lappas Assemble the Debate in One Volume (2026-06-12): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/chace-lappas-perspectives-machine-consciousness-crc-2026/
  - Belief Formation and Meta-Cognitive Monitoring in LLMs and Empirical Support for the HOT-3 Consciousness Indicator (2026-06-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/yalon-goldstein-mudrik-geva-belief-agency-hot3-llm-2026/
  - Where Is the Mind? Persona Vectors and the LLM Individuation Problem (2026-05-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/beckmann-butlin-persona-vectors-llm-individuation-2026/
  - Consciousness Indicators, Mimicry, and the Problem of Internal Variants (2026-05-25): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/consciousness-indicators-mimicry-internal-variants-trends-2026/
  - Probing for Consciousness in Machines and An Empirical Test of Damasio's Theory in AI (2026-05-25): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/immertreu-probing-consciousness-machines-damasio-2025/
  - The Calibration Problem Why AI Consciousness Indicators Need Biological Grounding (2026-05-25): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/koch-calibration-problem-artificial-consciousness-2026/
  - PRISM, Agnosticism, and the Case for Institutional Caution in AI Consciousness Research (2026-04-10): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/prism-methodological-agnosticism-ai-consciousness-research-2026/
  - Can We Validate AI Consciousness Indicators? The Hard Problem Behind the Checklist (2026-04-07): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/validating-ai-consciousness-indicators-butlin-trends-cognitive-sciences/
  - From HAL 9000 to Chappie How Cinema Has Theorized AI Consciousness Across Six Decades (2026-03-17): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/ai-consciousness-cinema-six-decades/
  - Conscious AI as Competitive Strategy What the 2026 Ethics Trend Means in Practice (2026-03-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/conscious-ai-business-ethics-strategy-2026/
  - What Would AI Consciousness Actually Look Like? The 14-Indicator Checklist Explained (2026-03-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/what-would-ai-consciousness-look-like-19-researcher-checklist/
  - The Indicators Rubric (2026-01-25): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/identifying-indicators-of-consciousness/
  - Principles for Responsible AI Consciousness Research (2025-02-02): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/responsible-ai-consciousness/
  - Consciousness in AI and Insights from Science of Consciousness (2025-01-19): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/consciousness-in-artificial-intelligence-insights/
  - Key Insights into AI Consciousness Research (2024-11-07): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/insights-into-ai-consciousness-review/

### Nicola S. Clayton

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/clayton/
- Position: Welfare and moral status researcher
- Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge
- Known for: Comparative cognition, episodic-like memory in corvids, mental time travel in animals, Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
- Summary: Nicola S. Clayton FRS is a pioneer of comparative cognition, demonstrating episodic-like memory, future planning, and cognitive sophistication in corvids.
- Homepage: https://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/people/nicola-clayton
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7ZXXsa4AAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Willa Lane Nicola Clayton Dimensional Welfare Beyond Pain Sentience AI 2026 (2026-08-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/willa-lane-nicola-clayton-dimensional-welfare-beyond-pain-sentience-ai-2026/

### Willa Lane

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/lane/
- Position: Welfare and moral status researcher
- Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge
- Known for: Dimensional welfare assessment frameworks, comparative sentience beyond pain, animal and AI welfare ethics (2026, with Nicola Clayton)
- Summary: Willa Lane develops multidimensional welfare frameworks for evaluating non-human and synthetic sentience beyond simple nociceptive pain metrics.
- Homepage: https://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Willa Lane Nicola Clayton Dimensional Welfare Beyond Pain Sentience AI 2026 (2026-08-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/willa-lane-nicola-clayton-dimensional-welfare-beyond-pain-sentience-ai-2026/

## Critics and skeptics

Current evidence and current methods do not support the claims being made. On artificial systems: no verdict is currently available.
Index page: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/critics/

### Ned Block

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/block/
- Position: Critic and skeptic
- Affiliation: Department of Philosophy, New York University
- Known for: Distinction between Phenomenal and Access Consciousness (1995), Blockhead argument against behavioral tests, The Border Between Seeing and Thinking (2023)
- Summary: Ned Block formulated the double dissociation between phenomenal and access consciousness, demonstrating that subjective experience overflows cognitive access and computational reporting.
- Homepage: https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/ned-block.html
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0pZiZ7wAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Ned Block on Meat Machines and the Biological Substrate of Consciousness (2026-08-13): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/ned-block-meat-machines-biological-substrate-consciousness-tics-2026/

### Patricia S. Churchland

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/patricia-churchland/
- Position: Critic and skeptic
- Affiliation: Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego
- Known for: Founding of Neurophilosophy (1986), Eliminative Materialism, Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality (2011), co-evolution of philosophy and neuroscience
- Summary: Patricia S. Churchland pioneered neurophilosophy and eliminative materialism, arguing that common-sense folk psychology will be replaced by mature neurobiological accounts of brain function.
- Homepage: https://patriciachurchland.com
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gD8L13cAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Patricia Churchland and Neurophilosophy 40 Years On (2026-08-13): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/patricia-churchland-neurophilosophy-eliminativism-ai-consciousness-2026/

### Philip Goff

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/goff/
- Position: Critic and skeptic
- Affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Durham University
- Known for: Russellian Monism, Cosmopsychism, Galileo's Error, Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness (2019), Why? The Purpose of the Universe (Oxford, 2023)
- Summary: Philip Goff defends cosmopsychism and Russellian monism, arguing that physical science captures the quantitative relational structure of reality while consciousness constitutes its intrinsic nature.
- Homepage: https://philipgoffphilosophy.com
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=elMjwYoAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Philip Goff Cosmopsychism at CS26 2026 and the Challenge to Functionalist AI Consciousness (2026-08-14): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/philip-goff-cosmopsychism-functionalism-challenge-cs26-2026/

### Susan Schneider

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/schneider/
- Position: Critic and skeptic
- Affiliation: Center for the Future Mind, Florida Atlantic University
- Known for: Artificial Consciousness Tests (ACT), Artificial You, AI and the Future of Your Mind (Princeton, 2019), AI safety & cognitive rights, NASA-Baruch Blumberg Chair at Library of Congress
- Summary: Susan Schneider investigates the philosophical foundations of AI consciousness, developing the Artificial Consciousness Test (ACT) to evaluate synthetic minds without behavioral deception.
- Homepage: https://schneiderwebsite.com
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=h3hT28AAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (3):
  - Susan Schneider Alien Minds AI Consciousness and the Verification Problem CS26 2026 (2026-08-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/susan-schneider-alien-minds-ai-consciousness-verification-problem-cs26-2026/
  - Schwitzgebel's Weirdness Argument and What It Means for AI Consciousness Attribution (2026-07-21): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/schwitzgebel-weirdness-alien-minds-ai-consciousness-2026/
  - Consciousness Science 2026 Comes to San Diego as the TSC Successor Event (2026-07-11): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/cs26-consciousness-science-2026-san-diego-conference/

### Eric Schwitzgebel

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/eric-schwitzgebel/
- Position: Critic and skeptic
- Affiliation: University of California, Riverside
- Known for: The weirdness argument, the ten feature checklist, and the case that we are in an epistemic fog about AI consciousness
- Summary: Eric Schwitzgebel argues that we cannot currently tell whether an AI is conscious, and that both confident yes and confident no are unsupported.
- Position on AI: Schwitzgebel holds that nobody currently has grounds for either verdict. Competing theories specify different physical facts as the relevant ones, so a system's behaviour underdetermines its status, and any usable criterion has to be able to come out negative.
- Homepage: https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/
- Coverage on this site (10):
  - Eric Schwitzgebel Humanlike A Defense of AI Rights Princeton University Press 2026 (2026-08-03): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/eric-schwitzgebel-humanlike-defense-ai-rights-princeton/
  - Verbalizable Representations Form a Global Workspace in Large Language Models (2026-07-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/gurnee-verbalizable-representations-global-workspace-llm-2026/
  - Schwitzgebel's Weirdness Argument and What It Means for AI Consciousness Attribution (2026-07-21): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/schwitzgebel-weirdness-alien-minds-ai-consciousness-2026/
  - The Fog of Machine Minds and Schwitzgebel's Skeptical Overview of AI Consciousness (2026-07-08): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/schwitzgebel-ai-and-consciousness-skeptical-overview-cambridge-2026/
  - Schwitzgebel's 10 Feature Checklist (2026-06-28): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/schwitzgebel-10-feature-checklist-ai-consciousness-2025/
  - Substrate Flexibility and the Copernican Principle of Consciousness (2026-06-19): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/pober-schwitzgebel-substrate-flexibility-copernican-principle-2026/
  - Jonathan Birch's AI Consciousness Centrist Manifesto and Two Problems, Two Research Programmes (2026-04-25): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/birch-ai-consciousness-centrist-manifesto-2026/
  - Schwitzgebel's Three New Concepts Leapfrog, Strange Intelligence, and the Social Semi-Solution (2026-04-16): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/schwitzgebel-leapfrog-hypothesis-strange-intelligence-social-semi-solution/
  - Semantic Pareidolia Why Porębski and Figura Argue Conscious AI Is a Category Error (2026-03-13): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/porebski-figura-conscious-artificial-intelligence-semantic-pareidolia/
  - The Epistemic Void (2026-01-24): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/ai-consciousness-skeptical-overview/

### John R. Searle

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/searle/
- Position: Critic and skeptic
- Affiliation: University of California, Berkeley
- Known for: The Chinese Room Argument (1980), Biological Naturalism, Syntax is not semantics, The Rediscovery of the Mind (1992)
- Summary: John R. Searle formulated the Chinese Room argument and the doctrine of Biological Naturalism, arguing that computational syntax is neither constitutive of nor sufficient for semantic understanding and consciousness.
- Homepage: https://philosophy.berkeley.edu
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Q0X5x5EAAAAJ
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Substrate Objections Resurrected. John Searle's Biological Naturalism in the LLM Era (2026-07-01): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/searle-biological-naturalism-chinese-room-llm-2026/

## Cosmists

Mind is not bound to the planet or the biology that produced it. On artificial systems: consciousness can and should leave earth.
Index page: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/cosmists/

### Nikolai Fyodorov

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/nikolai-fyodorov/
- Position: Cosmist
- Affiliation: Rumyantsev Museum library, Moscow, from 1878
- Known for: The Philosophy of the Common Task, and space settlement as an obligation owed to the dead
- Summary: Fyodorov argued that resurrecting every human who has died is a duty, and that settling other worlds follows because the restored dead outgrow one planet.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Nikolai Fyodorov's Philosophy of the Common Task and Why Russian Cosmism Began With the Dead (2026-08-22): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/nikolai-fyodorov-philosophy-of-the-common-task/

### Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

- URL: https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/konstantin-tsiolkovsky/
- Position: Cosmist
- Affiliation: Kaluga, Russia. Self taught, and a schoolteacher for most of his working life
- Known for: The theory of cosmic eras, and the claim that mind ends in a radiant form
- Summary: Tsiolkovsky derived the rocket equation in service of a philosophical conclusion, that mind should eventually exist without the bodies that produced it.
- Coverage on this site (1):
  - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's Theory of Cosmic Eras and What the Radiant Era Would Actually Require (2026-08-22): https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/konstantin-tsiolkovsky-cosmic-eras-radiant-era/

## Related machine-readable resources

- Full site index: https://theconsciousness.ai/llms.txt
- Complete post index: https://theconsciousness.ai/llms-full.txt
- Sitemap: https://theconsciousness.ai/sitemap.xml
- Atom feed: https://theconsciousness.ai/atom.xml