Ideas from Jared Edward Reser Ph.D.
Why LLMs Might Have Some Aspects of Conscious Experience: Temporal Organization, Iterative Updating, and Continuity in Transformer Inference, With Self-Tracking as the Missing Variable Jared E Reser Introduction Public discussion about “AI consciousness” often oscillates between two unhelpful extremes. On one side, anything that talks fluently is treated as if it must be experiencing something.…
Abstract The rapid emergence of large language models has shifted the central bottleneck in scientific inquiry from idea generation to idea selection. While machines can now produce hypotheses, analogies, and speculative frameworks at unprecedented scale, existing scientific institutions remain poorly suited to evaluate, consolidate, and refine this abundance of output. This paper proposes ResearchBotBook, an…
Abstract Recent public discussion of large language models has revived a familiar dismissal: that such systems are “just” next token predictors. Recent capabilities shown by language models in mathematics have prompted Terence Tao to push back on this deflationary move by suggesting that next step prediction may in fact constitute a large fraction of what…
Abstract Qualia is often treated as a static property attached to an instantaneous neural or computational state: the redness of red, the painfulness of pain. Here I argue that this framing misidentifies the explanatory target. Drawing on the Iterative Updating model of working memory, I propose that a substantial portion of what we call qualia,…
Abstract This article proposes a temporal and mechanistic model of consciousness centered on iterative updating and the system’s capacity to track that updating. I argue for three nested layers. First, iterative updating of working memory provides a continuity substrate because successive cognitive states overlap substantially, changing by incremental substitutions rather than full replacement. This overlap…
Abstract Agentic AI systems that operate continuously, retain persistent memory, and recursively modify their own policies or weights will face a distinctive problem: stability may become as important as raw intelligence. In humans, psychotherapy is a structured technology for detecting maladaptive patterns, reprocessing salient experience, and integrating change into a more coherent mode of functioning.…
Abstract This article argues that “continuity of thought” is best understood as the phenomenological signature of a deeper computational requirement: stateful iteration. Any system that executes algorithms across time needs a substrate that preserves intermediate variables long enough to be updated, otherwise it can only recompute from scratch. Using this lens, I propose a simple…
When “Don’t Go to College” Becomes Bad Advice A familiar storyline is making the rounds again: a famous entrepreneur goes on a podcast and suggests that college is no longer worth it. The implication is that AI and robotics are going to restructure the economy so quickly that formal education will be obsolete, or at…
1. The “Final Library” was never going to be singular When I first started thinking about what I called a “Final Library,” I pictured a single, civilization-scale repository of synthetic writing, synthetic hypotheses, and machine-generated explanations. The basic premise was simple: once AI systems can generate and refine ideas at industrial scale, they will produce…
1. The mood of 2026, and why it feels like a real transition I think a lot of us can feel the hinge in the air right now. It is not just that AI is impressive. It is that AI is beginning to occupy the exact psychological territory that used to define adulthood for “idea…
Iterated Insights 