Consciousness is framed here not as a ghost in matter but as what information feels like when it organises itself into a tightly integrated, time-bound whole. Across biology and computation, new capacities emerge when relations, not parts, do the work: protein folding, flocking rules, and multilayer networks show how pattern breeds function. We extend this to experience: qualia are semantic...
This chapter explores a simple but provocative idea: What if “information” is not just what we write down about the world but part of the world’s load-bearing architecture? We begin with consciousness as lived fact—how it feels to be aware—and set that alongside scientific accounts, from global workspace theory and integrated information theory to carefully framed quantum proposals. We then...