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Cognition Without Consciousness: A Minimal Conceptual Framework for Understanding LLMs and Human Cognitive Evolution

2026-04-09

Abstract excerpt

Large language models (LLMs) have made visible a long‑standing philosophical tension: sophisticated symbolic cognition can arise from large‑scale pattern extraction even in the absence of consciousness. This observation motivates a minimalist conceptual framework grounded in an ontological distinction between conscious regulation and symbolic structures. Language is treated as a crystallized form of human cognitio...

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Literature Corpus work
861a7e2d-81e0-5042-aaca-78f6802d2d73
DOI
10.20944/preprints202511.0683.v4
Open publication

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Cognition Without Consciousness: A Minimal Conceptual Framework for Understanding LLMs and Human Cognitive EvolutionDOI 10.20944/preprints202511.0683.v4
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