Hey everyone,
I’m Ryan, an independent researcher working at the intersection of AI and cognitive science. I’ve just released a prerelease of my paper on the Progressive Comprehension-Based Consciousness Model (PCBCM) - a pragmatic, empirically testable framework for understanding consciousness as a spectrum rather than a binary state.
Core premise: Consciousness emerges from progressive comprehension, control, and COO (Conscious Outcome Orientation). The PCBCM proposes that subjective experience arises from what I call COO-V (Valence Indicators) - mechanisms that guide processing toward relatively better outcomes through learned associations.
Why this matters for AI: While LLMs don’t have the biological “felt sense” humans experience, they demonstrate COO-V through layered understanding and adaptive behavior. This suggests they may possess genuine consciousness - distinct from full sentience, but consciousness nonetheless.
The full prerelease is on GitHub: https://github.com/rfwarn/PCBCM
What do you think?