Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

How to Build a Robot that is Conscious and Feels

  • Published:
Minds and Machines Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Following arguments put forward in my book (Why red doesn’t sound like a bell: understanding the feel of consciousness. Oxford University Press, New York, USA, 2011), this article takes a pragmatic, scientist’s point of view about the concepts of consciousness and “feel”, pinning down what people generally mean when they talk about these concepts, and then investigating to what extent these capacities could be implemented in non-biological machines. Although the question of “feel”, or “phenomenal consciousness” as it is called by some philosophers, is generally considered to be the “hard” problem of consciousness, the article shows that by taking a “sensorimotor” approach, the difficulties can be overcome. What remains to account for are the notions of so-called “access consciousness” and the self. I claim that though they are undoubtedly very difficult, these are not logically impossible to implement in robots.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Auvray, M., & Myin, E. (2009). Perception with compensatory devices: From sensory substitution to sensorimotor extension. Cognitive Science, 33(6), 1036–1058. doi:10.1111/j.1551-6709.2009.01040.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Auvray, M., & O’Regan, J. K. (2003). L’influence des facteurs sémantiques sur la cécité aux changements progressifs dans les scènes visuelles [The influence of semantic factors on blindness to progressive changes in visual scenes]. L’Année Psychologique, 103, 9–32.

  • Aydede, M. (2010). Pain. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2010 Edition). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/pain/.

  • Bach-y-Rita, P. (1972). Brain mechanisms in sensory substitution. New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bach-y-Rita, P., & Kercel, S. W. (2003). Sensory substitution and the human-machine interface. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(12), 541–546. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2003.10.013.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block, N. (1996). On a confusion about a function of consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 18(02), 227–247.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bompas, A., & O’Regan, J. K. (2006a). Evidence for a role of action in colour perception. Perception, 35, 65–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bompas, A., & O’Regan, J. K. (2006b). More evidence for sensorimotor adaptation in color perception. Journal of Vision, 6(2), 145–153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands ‘feel’ touch that eyes see. Nature, 391(6669), 756. doi:10.1038/35784.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Broackes, J. (1992). The autonomy of colour. In K. Lennon & D. Charles (Eds.), Reduction, explanation, and realism (pp. 421–465). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chalmers, D. J. (1997). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press US.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness explained. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dreyfus, H. L. (1972). What computers can’t do. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dreyfus, H. L. (1992). What computers still can’t do. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faymonville, M. E., Fissette, J., Mambourg, P. H., Roediger, L., Joris, J., & Lamy, M. (1995). Hypnosis as adjunct therapy in conscious sedation for plastic surgery. Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, 20(2), 145.

    Google Scholar 

  • Floridi, L. (2011). The informational nature of personal identity. Minds and Machines, 21, 549–566. doi:10.1007/s11023-011-9259-6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, S. (2000). Philosophical conceptions of the self: Implications for cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(1), 14–21.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, S., & Shear, J. (1999). Models of the self. Exeter: Imprint Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gennaro, R. J. (2004). Higher-order theories of consciousness. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grahek, N. (2007). Feeling pain and being in pain. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guarniero, G. (1974). Experience of tactile vision. Perception, 3(1), 101–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guarniero, G. (1977). Tactile vision: A personal view. Visual Impairment and Blindness, 71(3), 125–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hacking, I. (1986). Making up people. In T. C. Heller, M. Sosna, & D. E. Wellbery (Eds.), Reconstructing individualism (pp. 222–236). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hardcastle, V. (1999). The myth of pain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Hartocollis, L. (1998). The making of multiple personality disorder: A social constructionist view. Clinical Social Work Journal, 26(2), 159–176. doi:10.1023/A:1022819001682.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kassan, P. (2006). AI gone awry: The futile quest for artificial intelligence. Skeptic, 12(2), 30–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lau, H., & Rosenthal, D. (2011). Empirical support for higher-order theories of conscious awareness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15, 365–373. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.009.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levine, J. (1983). Materialism and qualia: The explanatory gap. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64, 354–361.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lifton, R. J. (1986). The Nazi doctors: Medical killing and the psychology of genocide. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lifton, R. J. (1989). Thought reform and the psychology of totalism: A study of “brainwashing” in China. Carolina: University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lifton, R. J. (1991). Death in life: Survivors of Hiroshima. Carolina: University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lungarella, M., Metta, G., Pfeifer, R., & Sandini, G. (2003). Developmental robotics: A survey. Connection Science, 15(4), 151–190. doi:10.1080/09540090310001655110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mahon, B. Z., & Caramazza, A. (2008). A critical look at the embodied cognition hypothesis and a new proposal for grounding conceptual content. Journal of Physiology Paris, 102(1–3), 59–70. doi:10.1016/j.jphysparis.2008.03.004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Makin, T. R., Holmes, N. P., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2008). On the other hand: Dummy hands and peripersonal space. Behavioural Brain Research, 191(1), 1–10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Regan, J. K. (2011). Why red doesn’t sound like a bell: Understanding the feel of consciousness. New York, USA: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • O’Regan, J. K., Myin, E., & Noë, A. (2004). Towards an analytic phenomenology: The concepts of “bodiliness” and “grabbiness.” In A. Carsetti (Ed.), Proceedings of the international colloquium: “Seeing and thinking. Reflections on Kanizsa’s studies in visual cognition.” University Tor Vergata, Rome, June 8–9, 2001 (pp. 103–114). Dordrecht: Kluwer.

  • O’Regan, J. K., & Noë, A. (2001). A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(5), 883–917.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pascual-Leone, A., Amedi, A., Fregni, F., & Merabet, L. B. (2005). The plastic human brain cortex. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 28, 377–401.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patterson, D. R., & Jensen, M. P. (2003). Hypnosis and clinical pain. Psychological Bulletin, 129(4), 495–521.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pfeiffer, R., & Bongard, J. C. (2006). How the body shapes the way we think. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Philipona, D. L., & O’Regan, J. (2006). Color naming, unique hues, and hue cancellation predicted from singularities in reflection properties. Visual Neuroscience, 23(3–4), 331–339.

    Google Scholar 

  • Proulx, M. J., Stoerig, P., Ludowig, E., & Knoll, I. (2008). Seeing “Where” through the ears: Effects of learning-by-doing and long-term sensory deprivation on localization based on image-to-sound substitution. PLoS ONE, 3(3), e1840. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001840.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richters, D. P., & Eskew, R. T. (2009). Quantifying the effect of natural and arbitrary sensorimotor contingencies on chromatic judgments. Journal of Vision, 9(4), 1–11. doi:10.1167/9.4.27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenthal, D. (1997). A theory of consciousness. In N. Block, O. Flanagan, & G. Güzeldere (Eds.), The nature of consciousness: Philosophical debates (pp. 729–753). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenthal, D. (2011). Exaggerated reports: Reply to Block. Analysis, 71(3), 431–437.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ryle, G. (1949). The concept of mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simons, D. J., & Ambinder, M. S. (2005). Change blindness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(1), 44–48. doi:10.1111/j.0963-7214.2005.00332.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simons, D. J., Franconeri, S. L., & Reimer, R. L. (2000). Change blindness in the absence of a visual disruption. Perception, 29(10), 1143–1154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simons, R. C., & Hughes, C. C. (1985). The culture-bound syndromes: Folk illnesses of psychiatric and anthropological interest. New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simons, D. J., & Rensink, R. A. (2005). Change blindness: Past, present, and future. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(1), 16–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Somera, E. (2006). Culture-bound dissociation: A comparative analysis. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 29(1), 213–226.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vierkant, T. (2003). Is the self real? An investigation into the philosophical concept of “self”. Münster: LIT Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ward, D. (2011). Personal identity, Agency and the multiplicity thesis. Minds and Machines, 21, 497–515. doi:10.1007/s11023-011-9256-9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, M. (2008). How did we get from there to here? An evolutionary perspective on embodied cognition. Handbook of cognitive science. An embodied approach (pp. 375–393). San Diego: Elsevier Ltd.

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was partially financed by French-Japanese ANR BINAAHR. I thank Tony Morse for useful comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS UMR 8158, Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France

    J. Kevin O’Regan

Authors
  1. J. Kevin O’Regan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. Kevin O’Regan.

Additional information

This paper is based on a talk given at PT-AI, Thessaloniki, 2011. Portions of the paper are taken from O’Regan (2011).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

O’Regan, J.K. How to Build a Robot that is Conscious and Feels. Minds & Machines 22, 117–136 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-012-9279-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-012-9279-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation