Abstract

​The illusion of intrinsic meaning in predictive coding through cognitive artifacts to minimize prediction errors points toward a functionalist attempt at understanding conscious experience. It examines how conscious experience serves functional roles in predictive coding and symbolic cognition systems within the brain. By addressing recent developments in diverse fields like cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and artificial intelligence, we argue that conscious experience emerges from the need to construct coherent narratives for survival and decision-making. Additionally, the paper explores the implications for artificial intelligence, suggesting that artificial systems could develop analogous cognitive artifacts through predictive models without subjective awareness, contributing to a functionalist understanding of consciousness, and further advancing the discussion on the nature of conscious experience in biological and artificial systems.