the-mind
A readable model of mind, consciousness, self, and AI (based on Joscha Bach’s public work)

Sources

This page lists the main sources used across the site, alongside newer reading and listening gathered for review.

Primary source

web_cimc_ai_cimchypothesis_pdf

Joscha Bach, Hikari Sorensen — *The Machine Consciousness Hypothesis*

Best for:

  • main source for mind / self / consciousness distinctions,
  • phenomenology of consciousness,
  • coherence-function account,
  • Genesis Hypothesis,
  • and the “no Turing Test for consciousness” claim.

Use this as the first deeper reading destination.

New reading and listening

Checked 26 September 2026. These additions broaden the reading list; they do not replace the primary paper or establish that an AI system is conscious. The essay below has been read in full, and selected passages of the two interview transcripts have been reviewed. Other recording summaries and chapter links come from their publishers; the recordings have not yet been reviewed in full for new claim citations. Dates are publication dates, not necessarily recording dates.

Artificial Intelligence and You — Joscha Bach, parts 1 and 2

Peter Scott interviews Bach about the machine consciousness hypothesis and how we might recognize consciousness in another system.

Beyond Tomorrow — AI, agency, and consciousness

AI Expert JOSCHA BACH: AGI Will Be GREAT and Might Change Us for The Better! (Here’s Why) — 7 August 2026, The Beyond Tomorrow Podcast with Julian Issa.

Useful entry points in the publisher's chapters: constructed experience at 27:23, whether AI needs consciousness at 29:01, and free will at 1:17:58. The interview also contains wider social and technological forecasts, which are outside this site's explanatory focus.

AAAI 2026 — Keynote by CIMC

Keynote by CIMC — Joscha Bach — 22 July 2026, California Institute for Machine Consciousness.

A 68-minute Bach keynote from the AAAI 2026 symposium, published by CIMC. A direct entry into the institute's conference material; the broader recordings and proceedings are linked below.

Machine Consciousness & AI Awakening

Davidad and Joscha Bach in conversation — 13 July 2026, California Institute for Machine Consciousness.

The publisher describes a discussion of current language models, self-awareness, substrate independence, and the hard problem. This is a conversation between two thinkers; individual positions need speaker-specific review before attribution.

AGI, Consciousness, and the Evolution of Intelligence

Joscha Bach on Digital Disruption — 8 June 2026, Info-Tech Research Group.

The opening chapters cover intelligence and consciousness at 02:00, LLM intelligence at 06:52, and human versus machine learning at 10:09. Later sections range into institutions and economics.

AI, Religious War, and Cyber Animism

Joscha Bach with Vance Crowe — 19 May 2026, Vance Crowe.

The publisher highlights hallucination, dreaming, and Bach's cyber-animism framing. Potentially useful alongside the self and spirituality questions; the interview's political and religious commentary is not adopted as the site's position.

The age of AGE: Artificial General Experience

Joscha Bach's essay — 27 March 2026.

Discussing Rana Gujral's The AI Instinct, this essay considers cognitive agency across multiple dimensions, grounding through interaction, and human–AI collaboration. It helps explain why a single capability score is a limited description of a mind. Its scenarios for future human–AI relationships are speculative context, not evidence that current systems have subjective experience.

Bootstrapping a GODLIKE Mind

Joscha Bach with Wes Roth and Dylan Curious — 12 March 2026, Wes Roth.

Publisher chapter links include the function of consciousness at 32:15, self-awareness at 48:23, and metacognition at 55:09.

Future Day 2026

Joscha Bach, Anders Sandberg, and Adam Ford — 2 March 2026, Science, Technology & the Future.

A multi-speaker event recording whose description identifies Bach's presentation on the machine consciousness hypothesis and a discussion with Sandberg. The full recording also contains Ford's separate presentation; it should not be treated as Bach-only material.

Research-program context

These official CIMC sources explain how the hypothesis is being developed into a broader research program. Use them for orientation, not as replacements for primary theory citations or as evidence that a system is conscious.

September 2026 research update

CIMC: Berlin Recap, Hackathons & Upcoming Events — 25 September 2026.

Includes a researcher note by Hikari Sorensen, a recap of the Berlin meeting, and links to Bach's recent podcast appearances. The note leaves open whether representational similarities between language models and human minds entail experience. At the time of this check, the Berlin talk recordings were announced as forthcoming, so they are not listed here as available recordings.

AAAI 2026 recordings and proceedings

CIMC's symposium report and recording links — 19 August 2026.

A guide to the April symposium's discussions of implementation, measurement, selfhood, and ethical uncertainty. The AAAI proceedings include a machine-consciousness section with work by multiple authors and differing positions; these papers are broader research context, not collectively Bach's claims.

web_cimc_ai_cimcwhitepaper_pdf

Best for:

  • CIMC’s official research program,
  • construction plus interpretive validation as a method,
  • research directions,
  • and ethics and stewardship context.

web_cimc_ai_root

Best for:

  • CIMC’s mission and public orientation,
  • official links to current institute material,
  • and source-discovery context.

Main supporting Bach sources

ccc_38c3_self_models_of_loving_grace

Best for:

  • agency and control,
  • model-based regulation,
  • multi-level governance,
  • self-model framing.

ccc_35c3_10030_the_ghost_in_the_machine

Best for:

  • valence,
  • reward / value / norms,
  • free will as control capacity,
  • compulsion.

ccc_37c3_12167_synthetic_sentience

Best for:

  • dreaming / simulation metaphor,
  • world-model framing,
  • virtualism-adjacent explanation.

yt_UkAOHrbcnAs

Best for:

  • self-model,
  • observer,
  • first-person structure.

yt_CcQMYNi9a2w

Best for:

  • self-model,
  • narrative,
  • qualitative experience.

yt_O5hymlaldf0

Best for:

  • “dream within the dream” framing for current AI limits.

Accessible explanation sources

These are especially useful when the public page needs a clearer reader-facing formulation than the white paper alone provides.

web_jimruttshow_blubrry_net_the_jim_rutt_show_transcripts_transcript_of_ep_334_worldviews_joscha_bach

Best for:

  • mental-state coordination,
  • realness as implementation,
  • and game-engine-style explanation of constructed experience.

yt_AQqb6nW9F6c

Best for:

  • the experienced world as a constructed model,
  • and the "game engine" framing for perception.

yt_9LtKJ2k8UyM

Best for:

  • presentness,
  • "nowness",
  • and a compact explanation of consciousness as synchronization.

yt_TvoIpLlwf8k

Best for:

  • self as narrative,
  • and reader-facing language for self-model construction.

yt_8mixT5_U0hk

Best for:

  • valence,
  • generated happiness,
  • and why evaluation is produced inside the system.

yt_O5hymlaldf0

Best for:

  • current AI limits,
  • observer/perception framing,
  • and the "dream within the dream" handle.

Historical / contextual works cited by the main paper

These are not the main explanatory substrate of the site, but they are useful for deeper context.

  • Aristotle — De Anima
  • Leibniz — Monadology
  • Thomas Nagel — “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”
  • David Chalmers — “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness”
  • Christoph von der Malsburg — “The Coherence Definition of Consciousness”
  • Chris Olah et al. — “Zoom In: An Introduction to Circuits”

Reading order

If you want the shortest deepening path:

  1. The Machine Consciousness Hypothesis
  2. Self Models of Loving Grace
  3. The Ghost in the Machine
  4. Synthetic Sentience