Abstract: The author gives a computer model of intentional goal-seeking, which has two parts. The static part consists of a goalrepresentation and a plan for achieving it. The dynamic part is arepeated feedback cycle of sensed input, internal information processingand action output. Human intentionality is accompanied by consciousness,but there could be an intentional robot which is not conscious. Using robotic models of goal-seeking systems, we define a teleologicalcontinuum of goal-seeking systems; this continuum runs from simpledirect response systems to intentional systems. There are two traditionalexplanations of this teleological continuum: the final cause theory ofPlato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, and the reductionist theory of the Greekatomists and modern evolutionary biologists. The writer comments onthese doctrines. The author surveys several types of conscious functioning andproposes a theory of consciousness that is automaton based, involvingcomparisons between the human person, with mind and body, and theorganization of a computer having a central control. Viewed from theperspective of computer architecture, human consciousness is a particularkind of computer control system, a relatively simple real-time controlwhich, when the system is awakened, directs short-term activities andplans longer-term activities.

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