Sign-In
Cart
Abstraction and Resilience: the Characteristics of Consciousness
Paperback
PhilosophyGeneral ComputersGeneral Psychology
Publisher: Chris Riley
Published: May 6 2026
Pages: 222
Weight: 0.58
Height: 0.51 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Consciousness isn't magic. It's engineered.
That's the starting premise of Abstraction and Resilience, a new framework that cuts through decades of philosophical deadlock to offer something both tractable and urgent: a way to measure how conscious any system - human, animal, or machine - actually is, and what moral weight should follow.
Chris Riley proposes a deceptively simple formula: C = A × R. Consciousness equals hierarchical abstraction - the capacity to build layered models of the world - multiplied by systemic resilience - the capacity to persist through damage, detect harm, and repair. If either factor is zero, the product is zero. No matter how smart a system is, without resilience it isn't conscious. And no matter how persistent, without deep abstraction it's just blind survival.
The framework reframes consciousness as a curve, not a binary. Dogs sit high on resilience but low on abstraction. Current AI scores decently on abstraction but essentially zero on resilience. Humans anchor the top of both scales. The multiplication means progress requires advancing on both dimensions - and gives us, for the first time, a way to measure how far any system is from the threshold of moral significance.
Chris draws on transformer architecture, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, moral philosophy, science fiction (Murderbot, HAL, Blade Runner, Westworld), religious thought, and personal experience - including his family's journey through childhood cancer - to build an argument that is intellectually rigorous but written with warmth, humor, and an unapologetic conversational voice. He unpacks what abstraction really means in both brains and machines, why current AI's lack of long-term memory is a fundamental ceiling unless and until the technical paradigm changes, and what suffering, healing, and a persistent self would actually require in a digital system. He surveys AI's sprawling societal impact and argues that the capabilities associated with consciousness - genuine world modeling, persistent values, self-assessment - are also what AI safety needs to become durable rather than brittle.
The book culminates in a striking claim about the hard problem of consciousness itself: functional consciousness is engineered, but phenomenal consciousness - the felt quality of experience - is emergent through social embedding. We will grant machines consciousness not because of additional engineering, but because humans are empathetic creatures who recognize suffering in others. The question isn't whether the machine is really conscious. It's whether that question even needs an answer for moral purposes.
Abstraction and Resilience is for anyone who wants to think clearly about AI consciousness without getting lost in mysticism or hype - and who suspects that the question matters more right now than most people realize.
Also from
Riley, Chris
You Must Be Psychic: Secrets to Unlock Your Inner Power and Reveal Your Future
Riley, Chris
Hardcover
Developer Advocacy: Establishing Trust, Creating Connections, and Inspiring Developers to Build Better
Riley, Chris
Tozzi, Chris
Paperback
Also in
General Computers
All Data Are Local: Thinking Critically in a Data-Driven Society
Loukissas, Yanni Alexander
Paperback
Comptia Network+ Certmike: Prepare. Practice. Pass the Test! Get Certified!: Exam N10-008
Zacker, Craig
Chapple, Mike
Paperback
Interactive Theorem Proving and Program Development: Coq'art: The Calculus of Inductive Constructions
Castéran, Pierre
Bertot, Yves
Hardcover
Seven Databases in Seven Weeks: A Guide to Modern Databases and the Nosql Movement
Wilson, Jim
Perkins, Luc
Redmond, Eric
Paperback
R for Data Science: Import, Tidy, Transform, Visualize, and Model Data
Wickham, Hadley
Grolemund, Garrett
Paperback
The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think about Artificial Intelligence--Before It's Too Late
Doctorow, Cory
Paperback
Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems
Kleppmann, Martin
Riccomini, Chris
Paperback
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All
Soares, Nate
Yudkowsky, Eliezer
Hardcover
AI for Good: How Real People Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Fix Things That Matter
Tyrangiel, Josh
Hardcover
The Year in Tech, 2026: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review
Anthony, Scott D.
Webb, Amy
Review, Harvard Business
Paperback
Human Raised: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity & Lifelong Learning in the Age of AI
Suskind, Dana, MD
Hardcover
Hbr's 10 Must Reads on AI (with Bonus Article How to Win with Machine Learning by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and AVI Goldfarb)
Review, Harvard Business
Davenport, Thomas H.
Iansiti, Marco
Paperback
A Giant Leap: How AI Is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future
Wachter, Robert
Hardcover
The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want
Hanna, Alex
Bender, Emily M.
Hardcover
Generative Ai: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review
Cremer, David De
Review, Harvard Business
Mollick, Ethan
Paperback
Fans First: Change The Game, Break the Rules & Create an Unforgettable Experience
Cole, Jesse
Paperback
AI Literacy in Any Class: Preparing Students to Thrive in an AI Future in Any Grade Level or Content Area
Miller, Matt
Paperback
CompTIA Network+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Ninth Edition (Exam N10-009)
Weissman, Jonathan S.
Paperback
The Agi Chronicles: The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence
Roose, Kevin
Hardcover
Fundamentals of Data Engineering: Plan and Build Robust Data Systems
Housley, Matt
Reis, Joe
Paperback
Minecraft: Guide Collection 4-Book Boxed Set (Updated): Survival (Updated), Creative (Updated), Redstone (Updated), Combat
The Official Minecraft Team
Mojang Ab
Hardcover
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference
Narayanan, Arvind
Kapoor, Sayash
Paperback
Python Crash Course, 3rd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming
Matthes, Eric
Paperback
Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence
Crawford, Kate
Paperback
We Are as Gods: A Survival Guide for the Age of Abundance
Diamandis, Peter H.
Kotler, Steven
Hardcover
AI with Intention: Principles and Action Steps for Teachers and School Leaders
Frontier, Tony
Paperback
Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and Pytorch: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems
Géron, Aurélien
Paperback
The Eureka Machine: Why AI Is the Key to Unlocking a New Era of Scientific Discoveries
Socher, Richard
Hardcover
The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip
Witt, Stephen
Hardcover
Human + Machine, Updated and Expanded: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI
Daugherty, Paul R.
Wilson, H. James
Hardcover
The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a New Section: On Robustness and Fragility
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas
Paperback
Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (with a New Preface)
Mitchell, Melanie
Paperback
Hands-On Large Language Models: Language Understanding and Generation
Alammar, Jay
Grootendorst, Maarten
Paperback
Embedded Systems with ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers in Assembly Language and C: Fourth Edition
Zhu, Yifeng
Paperback
Fundamentals of Software Architecture: A Modern Engineering Approach
Richards, Mark
Ford, Neal
Paperback
CompTIA Tech+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Third Edition (Exam FC0-U71)
Wempen, Faithe
Paperback
AI Projects with Raspberry Pi: High-Performance Artificial Intelligence for Robotics, Security, Home Automation, and Vision
Hattersley, Lucy
Jepson, Brian
Paperback
Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence
Goldfarb, Avi
Agrawal, Ajay
Gans, Joshua
Hardcover
Minecraft: Exploded Builds: Medieval Fortress: An Official Mojang Book
Mojang Ab
The Official Minecraft Team
Paperback
Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet with a New Introduction by the Author
Blum, Andrew
Paperback
Minecraft: Roll for Adventure: The Temple of the Charged Creeper
Forbeck, Matt
Forbeck, Marty
Hardcover
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference
Kapoor, Sayash
Narayanan, Arvind
Hardcover
AP Computer Science a Premium, 13th Edition: Prep Book with 6 Practice Tests + Comprehensive Review + Online Practice (2026)
Teukolsky, Roselyn, M. S.
Carman, Chris
Paperback
You to the Power of Two: Redefining Human Potential in the Age of Identic AI
Bradley, Joseph
Tapscott, Don
Hardcover
You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place
Shane, Janelle
Paperback
The AI Ultimatum: Preparing for a World of Intelligent Machines and Radical Transformation
Hill, Paul
Brown, Steve
Paperback
The Devops Handbook, 2nd Edition: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, & Security in Technology Organizations
Humble, Jez
Debois, Patrick
Kim, Gene
Paperback
AP Computer Science Principles Premium, 2027: 6 Practice Tests + Comprehensive Review + Online Practice
Reichelson, Seth
Paperback
Artificial Intelligence All-In-One for Dummies
Massaron, Luca
Minnick, Chris
Mueller, John Paul
Paperback
The Fourth Intelligence Revolution: The Future of Espionage and the Battle to Save America
Vinci, Anthony
Hardcover
The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age
Turow, Joseph
Hardcover
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters
Nichols, Tom
Paperback
Designing Machine Learning Systems: An Iterative Process for Production-Ready Applications
Huyen, Chip
Paperback
AI for Educators: Learning Strategies, Teacher Efficiencies, and a Vision for an Artificial Intelligence Future
Miller, Matt
Paperback
RHCSA Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10: Training and Exam Preparation Guide (EX200), Fourth Edition
Ghori, Asghar
Paperback
More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead
Hougaard, Rasmus
Carter, Jacqueline
Hardcover
The Experimentation Machine: Finding Product-Market Fit in the Age of AI
Bussgang, Jeffrey J.
Hardcover
Building Applications with AI Agents: Designing and Implementing Multiagent Systems
Albada, Michael
Paperback
Graphic Artists Guild Handbook, 17th Edition: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines
The Graphic Artists Guild
Paperback
Love Machines: How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Our Relationships
Muldoon, James
Hardcover
Microsoft 365 Excel All-In-One for Dummies
Ringstrom, David H.
Alexander, Michael
Kusleika, Dick
Paperback
The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
Zamiska, Nicholas W.
Karp, Alexander C.
Hardcover
The Empty Center: Permission, Connection, and What We Build When the Future is Uncertain
Drumwright, Hayes
Hardcover
The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century's Greatest Dilemma
Suleyman, Mustafa
Hardcover
What Is Intelligence?: Lessons from AI about Evolution, Computing, and Minds
Aguera Y. Arcas, Blaise
Paperback
Navigeren door het labyrint: Een handleiding voor het beheer van data
Sebastian-Coleman, Laura
Paperback
Hbr's 10 Must Reads on Artificial Intelligence, Updated and Expanded (Featuring How AI Can Help Managers Think Through Problems by Elisa Farri and Gab
Agrawal, Ajay
Review, Harvard Business
Davenport, Thomas H.
Paperback
Prediction Machines, Updated and Expanded: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
Agrawal, Ajay
Gans, Joshua
Goldfarb, Avi
Hardcover
The Empty Center: Permission, Connection, and What We Build When the Future is Uncertain
Drumwright, Hayes
Paperback
Speak Data: Artists, Scientists, Thinkers, and Dreamers on How We Live Our Lives in Numbers
Lupi, Giorgia
Cox, Phillip
Paperback
Laptops for Seniors in Easy Steps, 9th Edition: Covers All Laptops with the Windows 11 2024 Update
Vandome, Nick
Paperback
The Next Big Thing: Innovations for a Better, Smarter, Stronger Tomorrow
Marciano, Rob
Trefil, James
Hardcover
A Whole New Human: Ten Ways We Must Evolve to Survive and Thrive in the AI Age
Rydall, Derek
Hardcover
R for Data Science: Import, Tidy, Transform, Visualize, and Model Data
Wickham, Hadley
Grolemund, Garrett
Cetinkaya-Rundel, Mine
Paperback
On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence
Woolfson, Adrian
Hardcover
Comptia A+ Complete Study Guide, 2-Volume Set: Volume 1 Core 1 Exam 220-1201 and Volume 2 Core 2 Exam 220-1202
Buhagiar, Jon
Docter, Quentin
Paperback