From a point of view of an engineer who works in the design and construction of robots, that intend to be autonomous and intelligent, the approach to the problem of consciousness can be establish as a set of questions: What are the benefits that can be obtained from consciousness? Is consciousness an essential specification for an intelligent autonomous machine? In case of an affirmative answer, then the great challenges appear: Is it possible to make conscious machines? If so, which are the basic elements needed to produce consciousness? And how they must be assembled?
Consciousness is the result of very complex mental processes. The study of these processes using a systemic approach can help to answer the previous questions. Based on this analysis, we conclude that consciousness is an essential characteristic of human intelligence. In particular, it is associated to our capabilities of advanced learning and planning future actions. Consciousness should be, so on, a very valuable tool for an autonomous robot that might work in complex environments.
A key aspect to understand mental processes in humans, as well as in many animals, is the capacity to integrate the information obtained from the word as dynamic systems. A dynamic system is characterized by its components, the relations among them and its behaviours. When we are watching, we do not see a spatial distribution of light. We see objects. Objects that can be formed by related parts and that behaves in a specific way. That is, we perceive systems. The three characteristics of those systems: components, relations and behaviour are essential aspects to understand how we perceive the world, and none of them can be ignored. In some studies, the perception of the world has been classically interpreted only in terms of elements, obviating the importance of relations and behaviours. The perceived systems can be as simple as a stone and as complex as a person. Here the adjectives simple and complex are interpreted in terms of system complexity. That is, taking into account the complexity of the system elements, relations and behaviours. A primary level of consciousness, also called core consciousness, consist in the perception of the self, just as another system and using the same mechanisms used to perceive the rest of the world, but with the particularity of adding to the systems the extra information provided by introspection, like emotions or thoughts.
A secondary level of consciousness, also called extended consciousness, emerges from the human capacity to reason about the systems, either on the real world or in the virtual world created by our imagination. Those systems include the self, associated to the core consciousness. That gives us a formidable capacity. We are able to reason about ourselves. That permits us to analyse our past actions and learn of our errors and successes. But that is not all; using our capacity to reason about ourselves we can plan future actions. This is carried out by reasoning about the expected results of our possible actions confronted with the behaviour of other systems of the world.