Abstract

The accurate measurement of the level of consciousness of a creature remains a major scientific challenge, nevertheless a number of new accounts that attempt to address this problem have been proposed recently. In this paper we analyze the principles of these new measures of consciousness along with other classical approaches focusing on their applicability to Machine Consciousness (MC). Furthermore, we propose a set of requirements of what we think a suitable measure for MC should be, discussing the associated theoretical and practical issues. Using the proposed requirements as a framework for the design of an integrative measure of consciousness, we explore the possibility of designing such a measure in the context of current state of the art in consciousness studies.