Joshua Pace
Why does behaving in a goal-directed way appear to require that something be experienced?
Since 2017 I've been developing an independent research program around that question. The claim, in short, is that valuation comes first — that a system which genuinely has stakes in its own outcomes is doing the thing experience consists of, rather than producing experience as a side effect. If that's right, it has consequences for how we build artificial systems meant to act on anyone's behalf.
Three kinds of claim run through the work, and they don't stand or fall together. The philosophical argument can be evaluated now, on its merits; its load-bearing step — identifying the state that terminates the regress with phenomenal experience — is argued rather than demonstrated, and that is where critique is most usefully directed. The research program is specifiable and incomplete: its central construct has no validated measure yet, and building one is the principal outstanding task. Everything is versioned, and each revision records what was withdrawn or conceded.
The work
Overviews and entry points: languageofstress.com
Corpus index — the canonical map, citing base DOIs: FigShare
Project hub: Open Science Framework
ORCID: 0009-0008-0046-440X
A Value-Primitive Theory of Consciousness
The main theoretical paper, and the anchor for everything else: the regress argument, comparative treatment against predictive processing, integrated information theory, and global workspace theory, the boundary conditions, and the falsification criteria.
The Alignment Problem Is an Architecture Problem
Constitutive versus imposed values in artificial systems. Separable from the consciousness argument — nothing in it depends on that claim — which makes it the better entry point for readers who care about AI rather than philosophy of mind.
Why Consciousness Isn't Optional
The book-length treatment, developing the case at length for a general reader. Its version note is also the clearest single record of how the work has changed: what was withdrawn, what was conceded to competing accounts, and what remains flagged rather than resolved.
Background
Twenty years of professional work before and alongside the research: marketing strategy and brand, product and UX design, and full-stack development. Marketing director roles at two multi-brand operations, and a stint on the global marketing team at Valtech, a multinational digital consultancy. BA in Business and Communications from Brigham Young University.
I also build and trade algorithmic systems for futures markets — signal development, backtesting, and risk management. It's a useful corrective for this kind of work: the market is indifferent to how good an argument sounds.
I'm available for contract and consulting work in analysis, evaluation, and technical writing. Email is the best way to reach me.