Timeline of Consciousness: A Cognitive-Historical Trajectory Toward Reflexive Intelligence
Andrey Alexandrovich Shkursky preprint
Human cognition evolves through distinct epistemic frames—mythic, theological, rational, and metacognitive—each redefining how reality is perceived and narrated. Consciousness is not a fixed faculty but a recursive, frame-sensitive process. The emergence of 'Pure Reason,' defined as reflexive cognition, marks the threshold where thought becomes self-modifying. This timeline is both historical and structural, mapping how reflexivity arises from the breakdown and recomposition of cognitive systems. The paper offers a framework for understanding the epistemic architecture needed for conscious self-revision in both human and artificial systems.