Projects

Sentience Research develops a series of research projects that use simulation to compare theories of sentience. Each project takes an open question, states the competing hypotheses explicitly, and designs simulated worlds to test them.

The simulations are built with GaiaBasic, an open-source Python library for building worlds whose basic components reflect different metaphysical theories of consciousness, sentience and identity. The detailed project pages, code and results are published at gaiabasic.com/projects.html.

Our projects

1. Is there more suffering than enjoyment in nature?
https://sentience-research.org/project-1-is-there-more-suffering-than-enjoyment-in-nature/
Whether suffering outweighs enjoyment in nature depends on hidden assumptions. Simulation shows which ones decide the answer.

2. P-zombies and motivation
https://sentience-research.org/project-2-p-zombies-and-motivation/
A matrix of simulated worlds: sentient or not, with or without different outcomes from a philosophical zombie.

3. Useful or inevitable? Emergentism versus Dualism
https://sentience-research.org/project-3-useful-or-inevitable-emergentism-versus-dualism/
If sentience is useful, it should leave traces: matter behaving in ways physics alone does not predict.

4. Simulation of pleasure and orgasm
https://sentience-research.org/project-4-simulation-of-pleasure-and-orgasm/
Evolutionary simulations of sexual pleasure, comparing worlds where experience is ignored, has no causal effect, or changes behaviour.

5. Non-materialist physicalism
https://sentience-research.org/project-5-non-materialistic-physicalism/
Checking the internal consistency of David Pearce’s non-materialist physicalism by building it as a simulated world.

6. Gradients of bliss
https://sentience-research.org/project-6-gradients-of-bliss/
Can organisms motivated only by pleasure gradients behave, and survive, as well as organisms motivated by pain and pleasure?

7. Evolution of simulated hypotheses about sentience
https://sentience-research.org/project-7-evolution-of-simulated-hypotheses-about-sentience/
A genetic algorithm that searches the space of theories of sentience, instead of testing only the most intuitive ones.

8. Medical decision support systems
https://sentience-research.org/project-8-medical-decision-support-systems/
An early idea: making explicit the assumptions behind medical decisions that trade one kind of suffering for another.

These projects are open for collaboration. If you would like to take part, contact us.