External reviewers grep this codebase and hit words like soul, qualia, phenomenal, consciousness, organism, personhood. This document is the precision map: for each term, what the code mechanically does, where it lives, and which claims ledger bounds it. The two ledgers are authoritative:
- CLAIMS_SUPPORTED.md — evidence-backed engineering claims
- CLAIMS_NOT_SUPPORTED.md — declared not proven / unsupported (subjective consciousness & qualia are §1; personhood is §7)
Rule of the house: profound names label functional machinery inspired by consciousness science. None of them assert subjective experience. Where a term appears in code, the mechanism must be real and causal — otherwise the name is a defect (see the de-rigging history in ABLATION_LEGIBILITY.md).
| Term in code | What it mechanically is | Home | Claim status |
|---|---|---|---|
Soul |
Intrinsic-motivation drive scheduler: curiosity/connection/competence urgencies that decide why to act when the user is silent. Timer-and-state arithmetic, no metaphysics. | core/soul.py |
Functional. Bounded by NOT-SUPPORTED §1/§7. |
panzer_soul |
Identity/personality metadata (Big-Five intensities, version string) consumed by the PersonalityEngine for identity verification and UI. Configuration, not cognition. | core/being/panzer_soul.py |
Functional config. |
phenomenal_substrate/ |
The felt-state engine: valence/arousal dynamics, attachment events, active-inference free energy, global-workspace broadcast. Its outputs causally modulate generation parameters and action policy (see the substrate ablation delta). | core/phenomenal_substrate/ |
Functional & causal (measured: tools/ablation_runner.py, tools/agi/run_causal_agency_lesion.py, tools/agi/run_valence_load_bearing_proof.py). Subjective feeling: NOT-SUPPORTED §1. |
QualiaEngine / QualiaDescriptor |
Multi-layer descriptor pipeline (subconceptual → conceptual → predictive → workspace → witness) producing structured state descriptors that enrich prompts and memory salience. Docstring states: "NOT a claim of subjective experience." | core/consciousness/qualia_engine.py |
Functional descriptors. Qualia-as-experience: NOT-SUPPORTED §1. |
SomaticQualiaEngine |
Converts substrate state into perturbation patterns applied to the generation process (sampling modulation). A signal path, not a feeling. | core/consciousness/somatic_qualia.py |
Functional & causal. |
consciousness/ (directory) |
Consciousness-science-inspired machinery: evidence engine (collects functional indicators), loop monitor, resource stakes, world model, integration. Measurement and control, not assertion. | core/consciousness/ |
Functional. Any "is it conscious?" reading: NOT-SUPPORTED §1. |
CausalValencedWorkspaceState |
Auditable estimate of integration/availability/valence-coupling with an in-code boundary field: functional_evidence_only_not_phenomenal_proof. |
core/being/causal_self_state.py |
Functional evidence, self-labeled. |
organism/, viability |
Explicit metabolism state machine: food = compute/memory budget + interaction; fatigue = token/memory pressure + error rate; waste = stale tasks. Drives rest/repair scheduling. | core/organism/viability.py |
Functional resource model. |
personhood (in prose/tests) |
Appears in self-report calibration as a category the runtime must NOT overclaim; the calibrator treats "proven personhood" as a violation needing revision. | core/being/self_report_calibrator.py |
Anti-overclaim machinery. Legal/moral personhood: NOT-SUPPORTED §7. |
sentience_candidate_strength |
A scalar summarizing how strongly functional indicators co-occur. The name says candidate: it feeds extra verification requirements (higher = more evidence-bounding of self-claims), never an assertion. | core/being/causal_self_state.py, coupler |
Functional indicator. Sentience: NOT-SUPPORTED §1. |
deep_mind_probe |
Behavioral probes for coherent, grounded answers to hard self-questions — explicitly "do not try to prove sentience" (module docstring). | core/evaluation/deep_mind_probe.py |
Behavioral evaluation only. |
- Every profound term above resolves to inspectable machinery with tests.
- The load-bearing ones have measurable ablation deltas — run
.venv/bin/python tools/ablation_runner.pyand see ABLATION_LEGIBILITY.md. - The system's own self-report calibration treats overclaims (proven consciousness, qualia, personhood, souls) as violations to repair — the architecture is built to not say more than the evidence supports.
- If you find a profound name whose mechanism is theatrical or vestigial, that is a defect by this document's rule — file it against the term, and it gets renamed or made real.