The Caveman Dashboard: Why consciousness must feel like something

2 pointsposted 14 hours ago
by nilegreen

1 Comments

nilegreen

14 hours ago

I've been working on why consciousness must feel like something, and why the "hard problem" dissolves when you understand what qualia actually does.

Core argument: Consciousness isn't added on top of computation. It's computation rendered into a format you can use. Qualia exists because self-preserving systems need priority signals they can't ignore.

This also explains why philosophical zombies are functionally impossible - they couldn't evolve reality because they lack the felt drive to resolve prediction errors.

Mathematical framework included: Q = k·F (qualia intensity proportional to prediction error)

Connects to my work on persistent AI systems (PermaMind) - consciousness requires both felt experience AND permanent write access to integrate those experiences into identity.

Looking for feedback from consciousness researchers and AI practitioners.