{
  "abstract": "Creatures that display 'hedonic place preference behaviour' are thought by many scientists to experience feelings, on the assumption that their attraction to pleasure-producing substances which lack nutritional value (e.g. cocaine, morphine) cannot easily be attributed to unconscious instinctual behaviour. In this paper, we discuss how a simple artificial agent that instantiates attributes of an affective system engaging in felt uncertainty about its intrinsic needs in relation to environmental resources can similarly display hedonic place preference behaviour -- through an apparently subjective form of information processing -- while simultaneously being entirely deter-ministic. We outline some implications of this artificially engineered behaviour for our understanding of the physical basis of consciousness and the experience of free will.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": "Journal reference: Journal of Consciousness Studies, 33(7-8), 2026, pp. 14-34",
  "arxiv": "2609.03883",
  "author_total": 10,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Mark Solms"
    },
    {
      "name": "St John Grimbly"
    },
    {
      "name": "Bruce Bassett"
    },
    {
      "name": "Evert Boonstra"
    },
    {
      "name": "Rowan Hodson"
    },
    {
      "name": "Nicolas Kuske"
    },
    {
      "name": "Kival Mahadew"
    },
    {
      "name": "Benjamin Rosman"
    },
    {
      "name": "Charel van Hoof"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jonathan Shock"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4p62w0vzs513r.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2609.03883",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "4p62w0vzs513r",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.03883",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "cs.AI"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "q-bio.NC"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.03883",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-03",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4p62w0vzs513r.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:18:37Z",
      "native_id": "2609.03883",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.03883"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "arxiv:q-bio.NC",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent: A Case Study",
  "title_text": "Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent: A Case Study",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:18:37Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4p62w0vzs513r",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": [
    {
      "doi": "10.53765/20512201.33.7.014",
      "pid": null,
      "relation": "published-as",
      "title": null,
      "venue": null
    }
  ]
}