GaiaBasicBasic elements
Think of a living frog. A simulation of it needs material objects (brain, body, pond) and also, under most theories, the frog's experiences. Other theories add abstract ideas or a persistent identity. GaiaBasic therefore offers four kinds of basic element. A theory can use all of them, drop some, or merge some into one.
Information / Matter
Physical stuff and the information it carries. Matter is a special case of information. Bodies, neurons, chemicals and environments live here.
Ideas / Mathematics
Abstract, platonic entities: numbers, forms, laws. Mathematics is a special case. Some theories place experiences here as pre-existing forms.
Consciousness / Sentience
Experiential states. Sentience is the special case of experiences valued positively (pleasure) or negatively (pain, suffering). Each experience has a valence and an intensity.
Identity
The "who" of an experience: what makes two experiences belong to the same subject, and whether that subject persists over time.
Operators
Operators are not substances. They act on elements.
| Operator | Meaning | In GaiaBasic |
|---|---|---|
| Will | The binary capacity to decide: a rule fires or it does not. | gb.Will |
| Motivation | The graded version of will, attached to concrete states. A rule fires with some probability when its conditions hold. | gb.Motivation(p=0.5) |
| Transcendence | Transforms, copies or moves elements. Copy-paste: being remembered in a book copies attributes onto other elements. Cut-paste: an identity moving to an afterlife. | gb.copy, gb.move, gb.transform |
Models of substance
How many fundamentally different kinds of thing exist? In GaiaBasic, the substance model decides which element types are fundamental and which are derived from others.
| Model | Claim | Component |
|---|---|---|
| Monism | One substance. Matter (materialism, physicalism) or mind (idealism, panpsychism). Everything else is derived. | gb.Monism(base=...) |
| Dualism | Two substances, for example body and mind. | gb.Dualism(...) |
| Trialism | Three, as in Popper's three worlds: the physical world, the world of experience, and the world of ideas and objective knowledge. | gb.Trialism(...) |
| Quadrialism | Trialism plus identity as a fourth kind. | gb.Quadrialism(...) |
| N-ism | Any number of user-defined element types. | gb.Pluralism(types=[...]) |
Models of sentience
Where does experience come from, and does it do anything? Each model is a component that tells the world when experiences appear, who has them, and whether they influence matter.
Emergentism
Experience arises from a material configuration once it reaches some condition (complexity, a type of organisation, evolutionary history). It may be causal or epiphenomenal.
Immersionism
The reverse direction. Pre-existing, abstract experiences combine and an individual "tunes in" to them, like a radio receiver picking up a signal. Individuality arises from experience, not experience from individuals.
Epiphenomenalism
Experience exists but has no causal effect. It is like the noise of an aircraft engine: real, but not what keeps the plane flying.
Panpsychism
Experience is a basic feature of all matter, perhaps at every level. Organisms combine it rather than create it.
Functionalism
Experience depends on functional organisation, not on substrate. The same function in silicon or carbon gives the same experience.
Eliminativism
There is no experience over and above physical processes. In a simulation, the experience layer is simply absent.
Idealism
Mind is fundamental and matter is derived from it.
Platonism
Experiences exist as abstract forms, independent of the beings who have them.
Physicalism / Materialism
Experience is physical. Includes variants such as David Pearce's non-materialist physicalism.
Particle theories
A special component (a particle, a substance, a dimension) is required for experience, and only some systems have it.
Models of identity
| Model | Claim | Component |
|---|---|---|
| Closed individualism | Each being is one subject that persists from the beginning to the end of its life. | gb.ClosedIndividualism() |
| Empty individualism | A subject exists only for a moment. Each instant has a new subject. | gb.EmptyIndividualism() |
| Open individualism | There is one single subject having all experiences in all beings. | gb.OpenIndividualism() |
The identity model changes how results are counted. Under open individualism, "how much does this being suffer?" and "how much suffering is there?" are the same question.
The theory map (A–I)
Manu Herrán's map of the metaphysical theories of sentience describes any theory as a set of answers to nine questions. In GaiaBasic, each question is a configuration axis, and a theory can be loaded from its code, for example gb.Theory.from_map("A5-B1-C2-D4-E1").
| Axis | Question | Example answers |
|---|---|---|
| A | Who feels? | A1 only me (solipsism) · A3 my species · A5 animals with a central nervous system · A7 all living beings · A8 all matter · A10 also ideas and information · A11 beings we cannot yet conceive |
| B | What is felt? | B1 pleasure and pain · B2 only pain · B3 only pleasure · B4 neither (illusion) |
| C | How much? | C1 all or nothing · C2 graded (humans most, or other beings more) |
| D | When? | D1 always · D2 no start, with end · D3 start, no end · D4 birth to death · D5 only now |
| E | Where? | E1 in beings · E2 all beings are one · E3 experiences exist independently · E4 only while someone has them |
| F | What is its nature? | F1 a special particle · F2 a dimension, like time · F3 a complexity threshold · F4 built by evolution · F7 internal conflict between options |
| G | Created or pre-existing? | G1 created under conditions · G2 pre-existing, linked under conditions · G3 the only basic component |
| H | What for? | H1 useful · H2 present in every natural law · H3 inevitable, without purpose |
| I | How available? | I1 everywhere and easy · I2 very hard to obtain · I3 abundant, but needs a complex system |
Familiar positions become coordinates. Welfarism, for example, is roughly A5-C2. See the original map for the full list, including sub-options.
Four families of theories
Theories of consciousness, sentience and identity can be grouped into four families. GaiaBasic ships presets for each.
God
A higher being or reality determines ours. Includes religious views and some simulation arguments.
Particle
A particular component is required, often biological: neurons, carbon, microtubules, the pineal gland.
Emergence
Sentience emerges from a material base under certain conditions: thalamo-cortical loops, integrated information, functional organisation.
Matrix
Nothing is what it seems. Open and empty individualism, sentient platonism, immersionism, atoms or ideas that feel.
Each family also implies a different moral circle, for example whether machines or biological neural tissue grown in a lab deserve concern. GaiaBasic can report these implications next to the simulation results.
Evaluating a world
A world is not "true" because it runs. GaiaBasic reports several measures, so theories can be compared on equal terms:
- Coherence. Do the rules contradict each other? Does the world break down?
- Evolutionary viability. If experience exists, can selection explain it? If it is useful, does it leave detectable traces in behaviour?
- Empirical fit. Does the world reproduce behaviour we actually observe in animals and humans?
- Parsimony. How many element types, rules and free parameters does the theory need?
- Valence accounting. How much pleasure and suffering does the world contain, where, and for whom?
These criteria follow the method described in How to demonstrate sentience: clarity, internal coherence, compatibility with evidence, explanatory power, and no arbitrary additions.