The Concept of a Motivated Emotional Mind Explains Thinking Processes in Cognitive and Phenomenal Aspects.
Integrative psychological & behavioral science March 29, 2026 Wiesław L Galus 2 citations
Thinking includes reasoning, planning, remembering, imagining, and feeling. The paper asks how bodily and neural processes become consciously experienced as a continuous stream of thoughts, and how these processes differ across thinking types. It proposes a set of hypotheses forming the Motivated Emotional Mind (MEM) model, which describes brain structure architecture, neuronal knowledge representations, and dynamic interactions among brain, sensory receptors, and effectors, all integrated by the organism's body. The model also addresses the extent to which AI systems can exhibit phenomenal consciousness and what would be needed for them to achieve it.