Two-page declaration proclaimed at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference, Churchill College, Cambridge, and signed by conference participants. Concludes that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates of consciousness.
“Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.” source
A statement by a group of scientists at a conference, not a position of a government or a national academy.
OFFICIALKristin Andrews, Jonathan Birch, Jeff Sebo and co-authors; 614 signatories listed when opened · 2024-04-19
Three-point declaration announced at New York University: strong support for consciousness in mammals and birds, at least a realistic possibility in all vertebrates and many invertebrates, and a call not to ignore that possibility.
“there is strong scientific support for attributions of conscious experience to other mammals and to birds.” source
Signatories sign in a personal capacity, not on behalf of their institutions (stated on the page). Signature count changes over time.
Peer-reviewed, preregistered study in which proponents of IIT and GNWT agreed on predictions in advance; 256 participants were measured with fMRI, MEG and intracranial EEG. Results matched some predictions of each theory and challenged key claims of both.
“These results align with some predictions of IIT and GNWT, while substantially challenging key tenets of both theories.” source
Weight ‘official’ here means a peer-reviewed research record, not a government finding.
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 030SHEET 2 OF 2
Analysis
Our own reading of the file, written from the sources on the other sheets. Opinion is marked as such.
Two questions hide under one word. The first is how the brain discriminates, integrates and reports information; that is hard work, but ordinary science. The second is why that processing is accompanied by experience at all. Chalmers called the second one the hard problem, and thirty years later no theory has a consensus answer to it.
What has changed is the method. Instead of each camp collecting its own evidence, the Cogitate Consortium had proponents of IIT and GNWT agree in advance on predictions that would count against them. The 2025 results matched some predictions of each and substantially challenged key tenets of both. Meanwhile the circle of candidates has widened: scientists now say the evidence strongly supports experience in mammals and birds and makes it a realistic possibility in fish, insects and octopuses. For AI, the most detailed assessment so far concluded that no system it examined in 2023 was conscious, and that nothing obvious stands in the way of building one that meets its indicators.
Our label is Unexplained in the archive's sense: the question has been investigated seriously and remains open. It would change only if a theory of consciousness made risky predictions and passed them, or if the illusionists persuaded the field that there was never a hard problem to solve.
What it shows
That serious researchers treat consciousness as unsolved: the leading reference work calls it arguably the central issue in theorising about the mind.
That scientists can now test theories of consciousness against each other with preregistered predictions, and that the first large test challenged both leading theories.
That two scientific declarations (2012, 2024) extend the evidence for conscious experience well beyond humans, at least to mammals and birds.
What it doesn't prove
That consciousness is non-physical, or that it is physical. The sources here leave both possible.
That any particular animal feels pain or pleasure the way humans do. The 2024 declaration speaks of a ‘realistic possibility’ for many species, not certainty.
That AI systems are, or will become, conscious. The 2023 report found no current system conscious and relies on theories that are themselves contested.
The other side
Illusionists say the label is wrong because there is nothing extra to explain. Keith Frankish, who named the view, argues that phenomenal properties, the inner ‘what it is like’, do not exist; our self-monitoring systems misrepresent ordinary brain processes as having them, much as Dennett compared introspection to a computer's desktop icons. On this reading the hard problem becomes the easier question of why the illusion arises, which cognitive science can in principle answer. Illusionism remains a minority view, but it is a serious one.
Brain activity carries information about what we consciously see; the 2025 study found it in visual, ventrotemporal and inferior frontal cortex. [cogitate-2025]
Strong scientific support for conscious experience in other mammals and in birds (New York Declaration, 2024). [ny-declaration-2024]
The most detailed assessment so far (2023, 19 authors) concluded that no current AI system is conscious. [butlin-long-2023]
What is open
Why any of this processing is experienced at all: the hard problem, named in 1995 and still without an accepted answer. [chalmers-1995]
Whether fish, reptiles, insects, crabs and octopuses are conscious: a ‘realistic possibility’, not settled. [ny-declaration-2024]
Whether future systems could be: the same report found no obvious technical barriers to building AI that meets its indicators. [butlin-long-2023]
Open questions
Is there a hard problem at all, or only the appearance of one, as illusionists argue?
Which animals have experiences, and how could anyone test it in an insect or an octopus?
If an AI system one day satisfies every indicator, would that settle the question or only move it?
Other analyses
COMMENTARYRobert Van Gulick, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy · 2004-06-18
Peer-reviewed reference entry covering the concepts of consciousness, the explanatory gap, and the main metaphysical and scientific theories. First published 2004, substantive revision 14 January 2014.
“The problem of consciousness is arguably the central issue in current theorizing about the mind.” source
COMMENTARYDavid J. Chalmers, Journal of Consciousness Studies 2(3) · 1995
The paper that named the hard problem: explaining functions such as discrimination and report is one kind of task; explaining why they are accompanied by experience is another. Hosted on the author's own site.
“The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience.” source
COMMENTARYPatrick Butlin, Robert Long and 17 co-authors (arXiv) · 2023-08-17
Report that derives ‘indicator properties’ of consciousness from scientific theories (global workspace, recurrent processing, higher-order and others) and checks recent AI systems against them.
“Our analysis suggests that no current AI systems are conscious, but also suggests that there are no obvious technical barriers to building AI systems which satisfy these indicators.” source
Frankish explains illusionism: phenomenal properties (qualia) do not exist but seem to, because introspection misrepresents brain processes. He credits Daniel Dennett as its pre-eminent defender and recalls naming the view in 2016.
“Illusionists deny that such properties exist.” source
Published in the issue “La conscience phénoménale : illusion ou réalité ?” (2023). The 2016 founding paper is in the Journal of Consciousness Studies 23 (11–12).
TO VERIFY Candidates, not yet checked
Frankish, “Illusionism as a theory of consciousness”, Journal of Consciousness Studies 23 (11–12), 2016, pp. 11–39: publisher page (ingentaconnect) returned 403; cited here only through Frankish's 2023 paper.
Dennett's own statement of the view (e.g. Consciousness Explained, 1991; “Illusionism as the obvious default theory of consciousness”, JCS 2016) not opened directly.
Whether any national academy or government body has issued a position on animal or AI consciousness; none was looked up in this session. Both declarations here are signed by individual scientists.
Found, but not linked to a source we trust. Not on the sheets until they are.