Organisms and consciousness
I study how organisms evaluate what is beneficial or harmful when they must act before all relevant information can be fully processed.
Explore consciousness research →Arik Shimansky
I work across AI, consciousness, complex systems and investment.
My work focuses on a common problem: how intelligent systems decide what matters, maintain continuity over time, and act when information is incomplete.
I approach this through scientific research, computational systems and practical work with technology, capital and institutions.
One problem, several domains
How do systems decide what matters and what to do next?
Artificial cognitive systems
I build and test AI architectures that maintain memory, goals, attention, provenance and internal state across time rather than reconstructing them from each prompt.
Explore artificial systems →Institutions and collective action
I examine how organisations make decisions when technology, markets or events change faster than their existing assumptions and structures.
Visit Synaptic Quanta →Current work
Research, systems and practice
Measuring the Unmeasurable
Accepted conference talk · working paperA theory of consciousness based on temporal constraint: what happens when an organism must evaluate the significance of a situation before the underlying information can be fully resolved.
↗Digital Umwelt
In developmentA persistent layer between a person and interchangeable AI models or applications, designed to preserve context, goals and continuity over time.
↗Personal Cognitive Architecture
Active system · research and developmentAn experimental personal AI architecture combining memory, provenance, goals, attention, metacognition and persistent internal state.
↗Nested Selfhood
Exploratory theoryAn exploratory model of how increasingly integrated forms of self may emerge from nested biological and regulatory boundaries.
↗Synaptic Quanta
Active practiceA commercial practice working on difficult problems where emerging technology, investment and institutional constraints meet.
↗An evolving research programme
The question has changed as the work has developed.
PQM and the hard problem
An early attempt to connect physical mechanisms, predictive processing, affect and evolutionary delay. Presented at The Science of Consciousness, Taormina.
Temporal constraint and valence
A testable account of why organisms may need to evaluate survival significance before sensory information is fully resolved.
Official conference abstract →Background
A route through science, finance, technology and climate.
My background spans mathematics and physics, institutional finance, investment, technology ventures, climate systems and AI. The domains changed, but the work repeatedly involved the same kind of problem: understanding unfamiliar systems, connecting incomplete information and deciding what matters before the situation becomes obvious.
Mathematics & physicsQuantum chemistryInstitutional financeTechnology & climateArtificial cognitive systemsConsciousness & selfhood
Read the full history →