QUALIA, MOTIVATION, AND CAUSALITY

Abstract

This paper develops a two-level proposal concerning consciousness. At the functional level, affective states may integrate heterogeneous information about bodily condition, goals, learned values, and anticipated outcomes, thereby influencing action selection and the generation of new goals. At the ontological level, the paper considers a stronger hypothesis inspired by verumika: that subjective experience is not merely an incidental accompaniment of physical processes but is connected to the conditions under which a world-history and the actions of subjects are evaluated. The two levels are deliberately distinguished. Evidence that affect contributes to agency does not by itself establish that phenomenal experience is necessary for computation, nor does it solve the hard problem of why physical or computational processes are accompanied by experience. The paper formalizes a preliminary decision model, identifies the additional premises required for an ontological extension, examines alternative explanations, and proposes a staged empirical research programme. The central contribution is therefore a testable research framework rather than a claim that the hard problem has already been conclusively solved.