Consciousness may emerge not from code, but from the way living brains physically compute.

Consciousness has long resisted neat explanations, but a growing body of research suggests the problem may lie in how we ...

A new theoretical framework argues that the long-standing split between computational functionalism and biological naturalism misses how real brains actually compute.

The familiar fight between “mind as software” and “mind as biology” may be a false choice. This work proposes biological computationalism: the idea that brains compute, but not in the abstract, symbol ...

A new theoretical study argues that many standard beliefs about consciousness are rooted in a misleading concept of how the ...

When René Descartes watched a mechanical figure move with lifelike precision in the 17th century, the scene unsettled him.

Right now, the debate about consciousness often feels frozen between two entrenched positions. On one side sits computational functionalism, which treats cognition as something you can fully explain ...

Right now, the debate about consciousness often feels frozen between two entrenched positions. On one side sits computational functionalism, which treats cognition as something you can fully expl ...

As a journalist who covers AI, I hear from countless people who seem utterly convinced that ChatGPT, Claude, or some other chatbot has achieved “sentience.” Or “consciousness.” Or—my personal favorite ...