Consciousness defined: requirements for biological and artificial general intelligence

Consciousness is notoriously hard to define with objective terms. An objective definition of consciousness is critically needed so that we might accurately understand how consciousness and resultant choice behaviour may arise in biological or artificial systems. Many theories have integrated neurobiological and psychological research to explain how consciousness might arise, but few, if any, outline what is fundamentally required to generate consciousness. To identify such requirements, I examine current theories of consciousness and corresponding scientific research to generate a new definition of consciousness from first principles. Critically, consciousness is the apparatus that provides the ability to make decisions, but it is not defined by the decision itself. As such, a definition of consciousness does not require choice behaviour or an explicit awareness of temporality despite both being well-characterised outcomes of conscious thought. Rather, requirements for consciousness include: at least some capability for perception, a memory for the storage of such perceptual information which in turn provides a framework for an imagination with which a sense of self can be capable of making decisions based on possible and desired futures. Thought experiments and observable neurological phenomena demonstrate that these components are fundamentally required of consciousness, whereby the loss of any one component removes the capability for conscious thought. Identifying these requirements provides a new definition for consciousness by which we can objectively determine consciousness in any conceivable agent, such as non-human animals and artificially intelligent systems. Introduction The study of consciousness requires the integration of many fields of research including but not limited to neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, physics and artificial general intelligence (AGI). Definitions of consciousness remain disconnected from the fundamental principles required to generate it. For example, common mistakes include conflating "awareness" with consciousness, likely due to the way the phrase "to be conscious of something" is synonymous with an awareness of that "something". As Crick and Koch wrote in their paper titled "Towards a neurobiological theory of consciousness," they deliberately avoid defining consciousness by explaining that "it is better to avoid a precise definition of consciousness because of the dangers of premature definition." After more than three decades, it is past time we generate a precise definition of consciousness and its requirements that are free of subjective biases.