Consciousness as Second-Order Feedback: Language, Self-Modeling, and the Emergence of Cognitive Systems
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) March 20, 2026 Iskandar Akhunov
This paper proposes a cybernetic theory of consciousness. Its central claim is that consciousness is second-order feedback based on a language-based world model that includes the system itself. Consciousness is defined not as a mysterious substance or passive inner state, but as the regulatory process by which a system evaluates and modifies its own reactions through self-referential modeling....