Consciousness is notoriously hard to define with objective terms. An
objective definition of consciousness is critically needed so that we might
accurately understand how consciousness and resultant choice behaviour may
arise in biological or artificial systems. Many theories have integrated
neurobiological and psychological research to explain how consciousness might
arise, but few, if any, outline what is fundamentally required to generate
consciousness. To identify such requirements, I examine current theories of
consciousness and corresponding scientific research to generate a new
definition of consciousness from first principles. Critically, consciousness is
the apparatus that provides the ability to make decisions, but it is not
defined by the decision itself. As such, a definition of consciousness does not
require choice behaviour or an explicit awareness of temporality despite both
being well-characterised outcomes of conscious thought. Rather, requirements
for consciousness include: at least some capability for perception, a memory
for the storage of such perceptual information which in turn provides a
framework for an imagination with which a sense of self can be capable of
making decisions based on possible and desired futures. Thought experiments and
observable neurological phenomena demonstrate that these components are
fundamentally required of consciousness, whereby the loss of any one component
removes the capability for conscious thought. Identifying these requirements
provides a new definition for consciousness by which we can objectively
determine consciousness in any conceivable agent, such as non-human animals and
artificially intelligent systems.

意识被人们以客观术语定义极其困难，本文通过研究意识和决策行为的关系，从根本原则上生成了一个新的意识定义，其中要求包括感知能力、记忆存储、想象力和决策能力，丢失其中任何一个组成部分都将使意识思维的能力消失。