There are few academic lists of theories of consciousness (Doerig 2020) as well as some good blog post series about specific ideas (shout out to SelfAwarePatterns), but as far as I know, there is no casually approachable comprehensive list of current theories in a single post yet. Well, until now. “Consciousness” is used here in the intentionally vague way Thomas Nagel defined it, namely the way that it feels to be something. As with some other terms, any further definition already makes debatable assumptions, and since this is not a post about semantics, we will hold on to the easy, intuitive definitions. The term “theory” is used in a conversational way here. If you want more technical correctness, think of “hypothesis” every time you read it.

The best thing to start with is meta, right?

As a big proponent of automation in development, I have a confession to make: I’ve never setup continuous deployment myself, I’ve always left that task to teammates. What better opportunity than this very blog to learn the ropes?