A General-Purpose Computational Model of the Conscious Mind

Elements of the Proposed Approach Building artificial cognitive systems that possess a concept of “self”, as well as cognitive and behavioral abilities of a conscious being is a difficult task, but one with tremendous practical significance and potential. In this work we outline general principles of a new approach to this task and illustrate them with detailed computational analysis based on a simple paradigm. Our approach to this task is grounded on three conceptual components – three key ideas (schemas, charts and the self) that underlie three levels of organization of our cognitive system. They are explained below.