The Big Picture Why we’re really interested in clustering proofs of theorems Manuel Blum, Matt Humphrey, Brendan Juba, Ryan Williams

WHAT DO THESE QUESTIONS EVEN MEAN?? Deep Questions… Are you conscious? Are rocks conscious? Are dogs conscious? Can machines be conscious? WHO KNOWS? WHAT DO THESE QUESTIONS EVEN MEAN??

Reformulating the Questions Informally, we wish to isolate the behavioral or physical aspects… … from questions about what an entity really “thinks” or “feels” Assume a formal system can be conscious. SCIENCE Informally, we wish to isolate the behavioral or physical aspects… OF CONSCIOUSNESS … from questions about what an entity really “thinks” or “feels” NOTE: former indicates observable aspects of consciousness whereas latter indicates questions about “true state of the world” -- thus, the former is clearly SCIENCE, whereas the latter falls strictly into the domain of PHILOSOPHY. So instead of (philosophically contentious statement:) “Assume a formal system can be conscious,” we choose to define “CONSCSness” for formal systems as something capturing behavioral and/or physical aspects of consciousness. hope to use what we learn about CONSCSness to help answer deep questions about CONSCIOUSness. question WE must answer thus becomes: “What is CONSCSness?”. PHILOSOPHY Define “CONSCSness” for formal systems CONSCS: CONceptualizing Strategizing Control Systems New question: “What is CONSCSness?”

The Big Picture… We aim to cluster similar proofs Similar proofs, together with their theorems, comprise a strategy We require CONSCS entities be capable of utilizing these strategies. Defining CONSCSness is an attempt to formally study consciousness. We hope to gain insight into some of those “deep questions” We aim to cluster proofs (similar: based on the “ideas” utilized) These similar proofs, together with their theorems, comprise a strategy We are requiring CONSCS entities be capable of utilizing these strategies as part of the definition of CONSCS. The definition of CONSCS is a work-in-progress attempt to formally study functional or mechanical aspects of consciousness. We hope to gain insight into some of those “deep questions”