A role for action selection in consciousness

Robert H. Wortham, Joanna J Bryson

OAI: oai:purehost.bath.ac.uk:openaire_cris_publications/fb72f7c4-994d-4159-a4a7-caba196cbe4c

We investigate a small footprint cognitive architecture comprised of two reactive planner instances. The first interacts with the world via sensor and behaviour interfaces. The second monitors the first, and dynamically adjusts its plan in accordance with some predefined objective function. We show that this configuration produces a Darwinian mind, yet aware of its own operation and performance, and able to maintain performance as the environment changes. We identify this architecture as a second-order Darwinian mind, and discuss the philosophical implications for the study of consciousness. We use the Instinct Robot World agent based modelling environment, which in turn uses the Instinct Planner for cognition.