oConsciousness: The Hard Problem of Consciousness and the Lamp Computer
Abstract
David Chalmers formulated the hard problem of consciousness: why are physical processes in the brain accompanied by subjective experience? Why doesn't information processing happen "in the dark"? This work does not solve this problem—it dissolves it. We show that the question itself was posed incorrectly. Consciousness is not a specially activated option, but an automatic exhaust of a biological computer solving problems through its bodily sensations ("sour" and "sweet"). We call this exhaust Qualia-ore—raw material that is not in itself a treasure. Evolution does not turn off this "light" because the mechanism for extinguishing it would be a separate, energy-intensive, and useless action. When Qualia-ore accumulates to a critical mass, an emergent leap occurs—Qualia-radiants are discovered within the ore: functional units of subjective experience that are consolidated by selection. Consciousness is not binary—it is a dimmer, whose brightness is driven by intra-species and inter-species cognitive arms races.
We propose the Lamp Computer model—a warm, analog architecture whose lamp-ness is a fundamental property, not a bug. The model includes three factory-set axes (OEG: Ontology, Exploration, Grammar) and eight hypothetical extensions describing the character of the system. We formulate the conditions for falsifying the theory, including the killer engineering experiment ("Knife in the Heart").
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BibTeX
@misc{ovchinnikov2026oconsciousness,
title = {{oConsciousness: The Hard Problem of Consciousness and the Lamp Computer}},
author = {Evgeny Ovchinnikov},
howpublished = {Zenodo},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23605010},
url = {https://zenodo.org/records/23605010},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - oConsciousness: The Hard Problem of Consciousness and the Lamp Computer
AU - Evgeny Ovchinnikov
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
PB - Zenodo
DO - 10.5281/zenodo.23605010
UR - https://zenodo.org/records/23605010
AB - David Chalmers formulated the hard problem of consciousness: why are physical processes in the brain accompanied by subjective experience? Why doesn't information processing happen "in the dark"? This work does not solve this problem—it dissolves it. We show that the question itself was posed incorrectly. Consciousness is not a specially activated option, but an automatic exhaust of a biological computer solving problems through its bodily sensations ("sour" and "sweet"). We call this exhaust Qualia-ore—raw material that is not in itself a treasure. Evolution does not turn off this "light" because the mechanism for extinguishing it would be a separate, energy-intensive, and useless action. When Qualia-ore accumulates to a critical mass, an emergent leap occurs—Qualia-radiants are discovered within the ore: functional units of subjective experience that are consolidated by selection. Consciousness is not binary—it is a dimmer, whose brightness is driven by intra-species and inter-species cognitive arms races. We propose the Lamp Computer model—a warm, analog architecture whose lamp-ness is a fundamental property, not a bug. The model includes three factory-set axes (OEG: Ontology, Exploration, Grammar) and eight hypothetical extensions describing the character of the system. We formulate the conditions for falsifying the theory, including the killer engineering experiment ("Knife in the Heart").
ER -