Intrinsic Computational Functionalism and Simulated Consciousness

2026-06-13

AI Summary

This study addresses the objection that simulated consciousness is unreal by proposing, within the framework of internalist computational functionalism, an Intrinsic Causal Computational Realization (ICCR) relation to characterize the intrinsic causal-computational organization on which consciousness depends. Departing from traditional approaches that focus solely on input–output behavior, this work integrates normative functionalism, causal intervention theory, and computational structural modeling to introduce internal mechanisms, intervention operations, and joint readouts, thereby establishing a criterion for consciousness equivalence that accounts for both physical implementation and intrinsic state structure. The findings suggest that if consciousness is an invariant of intrinsic causal-computational organization, then biological, artificial, or simulated systems satisfying ICCR all realize identical conscious properties.

Abstract

A common objection to artificial or simulated consciousness is that a simulated brain is no more conscious than simulated water is wet. We address this from the perspective of Intrinsic Computational Functionalism (ICF): if consciousness is computationally constituted, it depends not on externally imposed descriptions but on the computational structures a system physically realizes in virtue of its own causal-dynamical organization. In previous work we developed Canonical Functionalism as a mathematically precise special case of this anti-interpretivist program, identifying functional states by their complete future input-output roles under a fixed interface. Here we argue that this input-output construction, though important, is incomplete: as a behavioral boundary case of ICF, it makes lookup tables and unfolded systems that preserve the same boundary behavior canonically equivalent. A consciousness-relevant canonical representation must instead include internal mechanisms, interventions, and joint readouts belonging to the relevant intrinsic organization. We therefore define a mechanism-enriched canonical structure and use it to formulate Intrinsic Causal-Computational Realization (ICCR), a realization relation preserving physical implementation, intrinsic state individuation, transition structure, intervention profiles, and the relevant agent-body-world boundary. The central result is conditional: if conscious properties are invariants of intrinsic causal-computational organization, then any system satisfying ICCR realizes the same consciousness-relevant properties, whether biological, artificial, or simulated. We discuss objections including biological naturalism and integrated information theory. We conclude that to deny consciousness to a simulation, one must identify a consciousness-relevant intrinsic causal-computational structure that the simulation fails to realize.

Problem

• simulated consciousness
• Intrinsic Computational Functionalism
• consciousness
• computational realization
• intrinsic causal-computational organization

Innovation

• Intrinsic Computational Functionalism
• Canonical Functionalism
• Intrinsic Causal-Computational Realization
• mechanism-enriched canonical structure
• simulated consciousness