Dean Buonomano

The brain is an inherently temporal organ: it stores information about the past to predict future, and its computational power emerges from neural dynamics evolving in real time. Moreover, our subjective experiences unfold in time. Despite its importance, few theories of consciousness explicitly address the role of time. One initial step towards incorporating time into these theories is to distinguish between state and process theories: in physics, states refer to time-independent properties (such as mass or charge), while processes are defined by change (such as electrical current). The only form of consciousness known to exist is a biological process. This paper argues that if consciousness—like life itself—is a process, we can reject the possibility of consciousness in AIs running on digital computers. Furthermore, because simulations unfold in discrete simulated time—and are not intrinsically capable of telling real time in a substrate neutral manner—fundamental challenges emerge regarding whether AIs could be capable of experiencing one of the most salient subjective experiences humans have: the passage of time.