An Epistemic Perspective on Agent Awareness

2025-11-08

AI Summary

Contemporary consciousness research conflates agentive consciousness with knowledge, failing to distinguish *de re* (about objects themselves) from *de dicto* (about propositional content) cognitive states. Method: Breaking from traditional frameworks, we propose—first in the literature—a bimodal cognitive architecture of consciousness, formally distinguishing and modeling *de re* and *de dicto* consciousness modalities and their interaction mechanisms. Leveraging two-dimensional semantics and modal logic, we construct the first sound and complete joint logic system for consciousness and knowledge, precisely characterizing the dynamic relationship between conscious states and factual knowledge. Contribution/Results: Our framework establishes a novel formal foundation for modeling subjectivity in AI and provides a computationally tractable, empirically verifiable formal tool for philosophical and cognitive-scientific theories of consciousness.

Technology Category

Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Agent ArchitecturesKnowledge Representation and Reasoning: Action, Change, and CausalityMultiagent Systems: Agent/AI Theories and Architectures

Application Category

Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactionsSearch and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and multi-modal RAGUser Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Psychology-informed user models and recommender systems

Abstract

The paper proposes to treat agent awareness as a form of knowledge, breaking the tradition in the existing literature on awareness. It distinguishes the de re and de dicto forms of such knowledge. The work introduces two modalities capturing these forms and formally specifies their meaning using a version of 2D-semantics. The main technical result is a sound and complete logical system describing the interplay between the two proposed modalities and the standard"knowledge of the fact"modality.

Problem

• Modeling agent awareness as epistemic knowledge forms
• Distinguishing de re and de dicto awareness modalities formally
• Developing complete logical system for awareness-knowledge interaction

Innovation

• Treats agent awareness as knowledge form
• Introduces two epistemic modalities formally
• Provides sound complete logical system