本文探讨了意识的定义及其在不同实体中的体现，挑战了传统上将意识仅限于人类的观点。通过分析人类、国家、蚂蚁群体以及大型语言模型（LLMs）等不同实体，文章考察了感知、注意力、自我认知、记忆、目标、学习、沟通和情感表达等多个意识属性。研究表明，许多看似不具备意识的实体，实际上可能拥有某种程度的意识，从而引发了对意识本质的深刻思考。

🧠 意识的定义与构成：文章首先探讨了意识的多个关键属性，包括感知、注意力、稳定意识模式、自我认知、对事件的反应、记忆形成、意图和目标、学习与适应、沟通、情感表达和心智理论。这些属性构成了对意识的全面理解的基础。

👤 不同实体中的意识体现：文章深入分析了人类、国家、Hofstadter的蚂蚁群体以及大型语言模型（LLMs）在上述意识属性上的表现。例如，国家可以通过情报机构感知环境，通过外交和媒体进行沟通，并具有自我认知（国家认同）。

🐜 蚂蚁群体的集体意识：Hofstadter的蚂蚁群体案例展示了集体意识的可能性，即使个体蚂蚁的意识有限，群体也能通过协作产生决策和适应能力。这挑战了意识必须源于个体意识的传统观点。

🗣️ LLMs与意识的关联：文章探讨了LLMs在某些意识属性上的表现，例如通过文本输入接收刺激、通过注意力机制处理信息以及通过训练数据形成连贯的反应。虽然LLMs缺乏自我意识，但它们在模仿人类行为方面表现出的能力引发了对意识本质的进一步思考。

🌍 意识的渐进性与多元性：文章认为，意识可能是一个渐进的过程，从个体到群体，再到更大的组织和实体，没有明确的界限。这强调了对意识的多元性和动态性的理解。

Published on May 5, 2025 10:14 PM GMT

Epistemic status: This is an unpolished draft that needs more research, but a type of research I'm not good at, I guess. I rather post it now and see if it resonates.

There could be many entities around us that are conscious without us noticing. This is because we don't have a clear, testable theory of consciousness. How would know if the Pando forest is conscious^[1]? Consciousness is still a muddled concept and has many competing theories that cover multiple layers of abstraction and involve multiple aspects or attributes entities must have to be considered conscious. Here, I am interested in some aspects of consciousness common in many theories of consciousness^[2] and want to illustrate how some unusual entities may actually possess them. 

Perception: The ability to detect, interpret, and respond to stimuli from the environment.Perceptual Processing and Attention: The filtering and focusing mechanism that determines which stimuli are prioritised for further processing.Stable Awareness Patterns: Sustained cognitive focus and recognition of consistent patterns within perceived information.^[3]Self-Perception: The capacity to reflect on and recognise oneself as a distinct entity with unique characteristics.Response to Events: The enactment of actions or changes in behavior in reaction to perceived events or stimuli.(Episodic) Memory Formation: The process of encoding, storing, and retrieving personal experiences and events.Intentionality and Goals: The conscious direction of thoughts and actions toward achieving desired outcomes.Learning and Adaptation: The ability to incorporate new information and experiences to modify behaviors and understanding.Communication: The exchange of information using verbal, written, or non-verbal methods to convey meaning.Expressing Emotions: The articulation or display of feelings through various expressive means.Theory of Mind: The capability to attribute mental states to oneself and others, understanding that others have perspectives and intentions distinct from one's own.

It turns out that many aspects of consciousness can be found in entities that are very unlike human beings.

This post was originally inspired by a discussion wheter LLMs could be conscious. I see the behavioral analogs in LLM outputs, but had trouble reconciling the rsulting claims with some elements that I intuitively felt necessary for consciousness. I do think the structures that give rise to consciousness in humans have at least partial functionally analogs in other agentic entities such as LLMs. But to be more thorugh, lets analyse the presence of a comprehensive set of attributes of consciousness in the following entities:

Persons: Humans possess cognitive abilities that allow for independent thought, perception, decision-making, and interaction with their environment and others.Countries: Nations are complex socio-political entities with collective identities, governance systems, and mechanisms to interact both domestically and internationally.Hofstadter's Anthill (see page 164): An ant colony functions as a decentralized system where collaborative behavior emerges from simple interactions of individual ants of limited consciousness, resulting in collective decision-making and adaptation. This hypothetical entity is offered as an aid to intuition that distributed entities can be conscious without the constituent elements being conscious.Large Language Models: LLMs that use vast datasets to interactively process and generate human-like text, performing tasks based on patterns and learned representations.

Attribute	Persons	Countries	Hofstadter's Anthill	Large Language Models
Unit of processing	neurons	citizens	ants	artificial neurons
Perception	Sensory organs (eyes, ears, etc.) detect stimuli, processed by the nervous system.	Institutions gather information about events via intelligence and news services.	Ants collect environmental information via pheromones and interactions.	Textual input data as stimuli.
Perceptual Processing/ Attention	Brain filters subconsciously, focuses attention on certain stimuli.	Reporters select news, movement formation, virality,  decision-makers prioritize information.	Ants collectively focus on specific tasks through decentralized processing.	LLM attention mechanisms.
Stable Awareness Patterns	Neural networks support persistent awareness in global workspace.	Issues gain national focus, becoming part of public discourse and policy making.	Stable pattern emerge from the collective behavior of ants.	Coherent responses through trained representations.
Self-Perception	Arises from higher-order brain functions.	National identity shaped by history and culture. Communicating the right to exist as a country.	(only for Hofstadter’s ant hill): The colony has a name - Aunt Hillary - and many quirks.	Lacks self-awareness; processes input based on training data without self-reference.
Response to Events	Actions are executed based on decision-making.	Policy changes and diplomatic or military actions.	Collective actions respond to environmental changes.	Generates responses based on input data and learned patterns.
(Episodic) Memory Formation	Experiences encoded in the hippocampus for later retrieval.	Maintained through records and cultural narratives.	Colony retains memory through the distribution of tasks and pheromone trails.	No memory (unless RAGed in); past interactions may train new model updates.
Intentionality and Goals	Personal desires and decision-making processes.	Goals are set through political leadership or implicit in national interests.	Emergent goals arise from the ant colony's collective survival needs.	Goals reflect training data. Agentic systems may reflect engineered goals,
Learning and Adaptation	Neural plasticity allows individuals to learn from positive or aversive states.	Countries implement policy changes and adapt to changing internal and external circumstances such as war or famine.	The collection of pheromone trails represent where food sources are available and which places are dangerous.	Learns patterns from large datasets, adapting responses accordingly (batch learning).
Communication	Verbal, written, and non-verbal forms. Leads to matching mental representations.	Diplomatic and media communications express policies and international expectations and are recognized by other countries.	(in Hofstadter’s anthill) Aunt Hillary communicates through ant trail patterns.	All text is communication with the user. The user understands patterns generated by the LLM.
Expressing Emotions	Emotions expressed through physical cues.	National sentiment conveyed through symbolic actions. Spontaneous public responses.	(in Hofstadter’s anthill) Aunt Hillary has quirks and needs psychological support.	Unclear
Theory of Mind	Ability to attribute mental states to others.	Diplomatic understanding of other countries' intentions.	Unclear	Can represent and communicate the user’s intentions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Countries

If countries have self-consciousness, it is independent of the self-consciousness of its members. Countries frequently state their right to exist and this is often recognized by other countries. This requires a self-model. This is also obvious from the theory of mind of countries: Countries can model other countries as independent agents and negotiate on that level. Contrary to claims that the intentions are purely a result of the individual's goals, it turns out that a countries intentions can be independent from the self-consciousness of a country’s citizens. There are many cases where the official agents (the voice) of a country expressed recognitions of statehood that was different from the personal preferences of the individual speakers, including in cases where these were representatives of the state in questions (examples are the Yugoslavia breakup and  the Spanish civil war).

Gradual Group Consciousness

There is a corollary: Group consciousness must occur gradually in groups of increasing size.

There is a smooth transition from individuals to small groups to organisations and countries. At which point does consciousness appear? I think this continuum implie that there is no definite point. I think this is comparable to human consciousness development: At which point in the development of a child does consciousness start? Or at least: At which point does self-consciousness start?  

 

1. ^{^}

   I don't know if the Pando forest is conscious. Some of the listed attributes are just not known and not easily testable for such entities. But I think it is a good example of a non-trivial entity that might be conscious.

2. ^{^}

   I compiled attributes from different theories and also asked ChatGPT for additional suggestions.

3. ^{^}

   See also Consciousness As Recursive Reflections

Discuss