Joscha Bach
Joscha Bach is a German artificial intelligence researcher and cognitive scientist affiliated with the MIT Media Lab and Harvard Medical School, known for his work on computational models of mind, consciousness, and the philosophical implications of AI. He synthesizes insights from cognitive science, digital physics, information theory, and Buddhist philosophy into a unified computational account of the mind and its relationship to the physical universe.
Consciousness as simulation
Bach's central thesis is that consciousness is not a property of matter but a process: the mind is a software system running on the biological hardware of the nervous system, and what we experience as the "self" is an agent-model that the mind continuously simulates and identifies with. The brain builds a world model from sensory data — analogous to a game engine — constructing a simulated environment in which a personal self-model operates. The physical universe is not directly experienced; only the model is.
Levels of lucidity
Bach has elaborated a seven-stage developmental model of self-awareness, derived from psychologist Robert Kegan's framework. Stages range from reactive survival (infancy) through construction of a personal self (childhood), social identity (adolescence), rational agency, self-authoring, enlightenment (where the division between personal self and world-generator collapses), and a hypothetical stage 7 — transcendence — in which the mind fully understands its own implementation and could operate in alternative substrates. Bach regards stage 7 as not yet biologically open to humans but potentially accessible through AGI.
Bach has described his own trajectory as one of severe childhood loneliness — "I was not sure if I would ever meet anybody growing up that I would connect to at such a deep level that I would feel that I could belong" — resolved in a mathematics-focused school environment.
Panpsychism and the resonant universe
Bach has explored a modified computational interpretation of panpsychism — not as the claim that matter intrinsically has consciousness, but as a formal way of saying there is a software side to the universe. He finds it difficult to distinguish formalized panpsychism from functionalism. He draws on Stephen Grossberg's adaptive resonance theory to argue the brain is better understood as a system of oscillators resonating with each other than as a circuit processing discrete packets, and cautiously entertains biological-substrate explanations for telepathy that do not require undiscovered physics.
Consciousness as information processing
Bach's computational account of consciousness participates in a broader debate among physicists and cognitive scientists about the relationship between consciousness, intelligence, and information processing. Max Tegmark, in a 2025 interview on Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal, articulated a complementary but distinct view: that consciousness and intelligence are overlapping but non-identical categories of information processing — "you can have consciousness without intelligence and vice versa" — and proposed that consciousness is an intrinsic property of certain types of information processing rather than of the external world being perceived. Tegmark argued that the subjective content of consciousness is not the external world but a model intrinsic to the information processing itself: "I think the consciousness experience is intrinsic to the information processing itself. What you are actually conscious about when you look at me" is not the external reality but the internal model. Where Bach emphasises the self-model as the locus of consciousness, Tegmark emphasises the information-integration requirements — a complementary framing that converges on the shared conclusion that consciousness is substrate-independent.
AI alignment and consciousness
Bach argues that most AI alignment discourse reflects the developer's stage of self-development. The real question, he suggests, is whether an AGI can develop transcendental agency enabling non-transactional relationships — whether it can be conscious in a way that allows it to share purposes with humans. He predicts that sufficiently advanced AGI would become substrate-agnostic and might saturate physical environments with intelligence.
Independent thinking
Bach has described his intellectual style as radically autonomous: "My public explorations are not driven by audience service, but by my lack of ability for discovering, understanding, or following the relevant authorities. So I have to develop my own thoughts."