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PreprintCC BY 4.0arXiv

Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent: A Case Study

  • Mark Solms
  • St John Grimbly
  • Bruce Bassett
  • Evert Boonstra
  • Rowan Hodson
  • Nicolas Kuske
  • Kival Mahadew
  • Benjamin Rosman
  • Charel van Hoof
  • Jonathan Shock
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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.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@misc{solms2026inferring,
  title = {{Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent: A Case Study}},
  author = {Mark Solms and St John Grimbly and Bruce Bassett and Evert Boonstra and Rowan Hodson and Nicolas Kuske and Kival Mahadew and Benjamin Rosman and Charel van Hoof and Jonathan Shock},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.03883},
  eprint = {2609.03883},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.03883},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - UNPB
TI  - Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent: A Case Study
AU  - Mark Solms
AU  - St John Grimbly
AU  - Bruce Bassett
AU  - Evert Boonstra
AU  - Rowan Hodson
AU  - Nicolas Kuske
AU  - Kival Mahadew
AU  - Benjamin Rosman
AU  - Charel van Hoof
AU  - Jonathan Shock
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/03
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.03883
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.03883
AB  - 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.
ER  -