GaiaBasicBuild worlds out of theories of sentience.
GaiaBasic is a Python library and a small world-description language for philosophy. You choose what reality is made of (matter, ideas, experiences, identities) and how they relate. Then you run the world and see whether the theory holds together.
Philosophy you can run
We don't know which beings can feel, how much they feel, or why. Theories of consciousness are usually argued in prose, and prose hides contradictions. GaiaBasic turns a theory into a world with explicit rules, so we can find out what the theory actually commits us to.
Understand
Make each theory concrete. What exists? What feels? When does an experience start? Who has it? Each answer becomes a parameter of the world.
Compare
Run monism next to dualism, or emergentism next to immersionism, on the same organisms and environment. Check where they predict different things and where they agree.
Evaluate
Score each world for internal coherence, evolutionary viability and agreement with what we observe. Incoherent worlds fall apart. Coherent ones keep running.
Three steps from theory to world
Choose an ontology
Decide how many kinds of basic element exist: one (monism), two (dualism), three (trialism), four (quadrialism) or more. Pick which of them are present: matter, ideas, experience, identity.
Configure the theory
Choose a sentience model (emergentism, immersionism, panpsychism, eliminativism and more) and an identity model (closed, empty or open individualism). Then set the rules: does experience change behaviour, or is it only a side effect?
Run and measure
Populate the world with organisms, let it evolve, and read the report: total pleasure and suffering, who felt what, broken rules, contradictions, and how long the world stayed coherent.
A world in a dozen lines
GaiaBasic is a normal Python package. A world is an object; theories are pluggable components. This example builds a pond in which sentience emerges from neural complexity and has no causal effect on matter (epiphenomenalism).
Then it asks a question that is hard to settle in prose: if experience does nothing, can evolution still explain why it is there?
import gaiabasic as gb
world = gb.World("Frog pond", seed=42)
world.ontology = gb.Monism(base="matter")
world.sentience = gb.Emergentism(
threshold=gb.Complexity(min_neurons=10_000),
causal=False, # experience has no effect on matter
)
world.identity = gb.ClosedIndividualism()
world.populate(gb.species.Frog, n=200)
world.populate(gb.species.Fly, n=5_000)
report = world.run(steps=50_000)
print(report.coherence) # 0.0 – 1.0
print(report.valence_balance) # pleasure minus suffering
print(report.selection_pressure("sentience"))A map of the possibilities
GaiaBasic's catalogue follows the taxonomy of Sentience Research. Each theory is a component you can switch on, mix or vary.
Monism · Dualism · Trialism · Quadrialism
How many kinds of thing make up reality.
Models of sentienceEmergentism · Immersionism · Panpsychism…
Where experience comes from and what it does.
Models of identityClosed · Empty · Open individualism
Who the subject of an experience is, and for how long.
What GaiaBasic is not
It does not create sentience
A simulated experience is a variable, not a feeling. Simulating gravity on a screen does not make the pixels attract each other. GaiaBasic simulates theories about sentience, not sentience itself.
It does not test whether we live in a simulation
The goal is narrower. GaiaBasic makes metaphysical hypotheses explicit and comparable, so we can spend effort on reducing suffering where it most likely exists.
Where the project is
The ideas behind GaiaBasic have been developed since 2014 in articles and research notes. The Python implementation is starting now. This website describes the planned design; the API will change as the code is written.
Concepts
Taxonomies of substance, sentience and identity; maps of theories.
Design
Core data model, world loop and theory components.
v0.1
Monism, dualism, emergentism and epiphenomenalism. First examples.
Created by Manu Herrán
GaiaBasic is a personal project by Manu Herrán, founder of Sentience Research. Since 2014 he has written about consciousness, sentience, identity and the metaphysical theories that try to explain them, and about how to reduce the suffering of every being that can feel.