Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2018
Kenneth Williford, Daniel Bennequin, Karl Friston et al.
85 citations
The Projective Consciousness Model (PCM) combines a projective geometric model of the perspectival structure of conscious experience with a variational free-energy minimization model of active inference, explaining how consciousness serves a cybernetic function: modulating cognitive and affective dynamics to control embodied agents. Projective transformations link geometry and inference, integrating perception, emotion, memory, reasoning, and perspectival imagination to optimize behavior, resilience, and preference satisfaction. The PCM makes empirical predictions, fits a neurocomputational framework, and accounts for pre-reflective self-consciousness, the first-person perspective, the sense of ownership, and social self-consciousness. The authors argue it offers the most complete theory to date of phenomenal selfhood.
The MIT Press eBooks
December 16, 2025
Kenneth Williford
The author argues that thought and perception inherently include a reflexive self-awareness, described in Latin as "sui conscia" (conscious of itself). This virtual reflection accompanies all perceptions. Beyond this, a more explicit form of reflection occurs when one examines a perception through another perception, a process the author claims anyone can verify.
Brain Sci
October 9, 2023
David Rudrauf, Grégoire Sergeant-Perthuis, Yvain Tisserand et al.
The Projective Consciousness Model proposes that projective geometry forms the core structure of conscious experience, integrating perception, imagination, motivation, emotion, social cognition, and action. The model argues that consciousness is not merely a byproduct of neural activity but is fundamentally organized by projective geometric principles, which allow the mind to construct a unified, egocentric spatial framework. This framework underpins how we perceive the world, imagine scenarios, feel emotions, and act. The theory suggests that these geometric structures enable the seamless integration of diverse mental functions, offering a unified account of consciousness that bridges phenomenology and neuroscience.
The Behavioral and brain sciences
March 23, 2022
Björn Merker, Kenneth Williford, David Rudrauf
The authors respond to commentaries on their critique of integrated information theory (IIT). They first identify the main themes in the commentaries, then address two outlier views: that the problem of consciousness is solved or intractable. They discuss how non-IIT authors engage with the specifics of their critique, and finally respond to commentaries by IIT authors themselves.
The Behavioral and brain sciences
May 19, 2021
Björn Merker, Kenneth Williford, David Rudrauf
Integrated information theory (IIT) proposes that consciousness is identical to integrated information, measured by phi (Φ). Analysis of the formal properties of Φ shows it actually measures the causal efficacy of differentiated networks in accomplishing global information transfer, not consciousness itself. This misidentification leads IIT to attribute consciousness to systems such as electrical power grids, gene-regulation networks, electronic circuit boards, and social networks—a consequence the theory embraces, moving toward panpsychism. The cortical combination of differentiation with integration that IIT equates with consciousness performs a different function in humans. Recognizing this functional misattribution avoids a departure from science and offers lessons for research on consciousness from formal and neural perspectives.
Journal of theoretical biology
September 7, 2017
David Rudrauf, Daniel Bennequin, Isabela Granic et al.
Consciousness is modeled as a spatial field structured by projective geometry and controlled by active inference. The Projective Consciousness Model (PCM) combines sensory evidence with prior beliefs, selecting points of view and perspectives according to preferences. Violations of expectation are encoded as free energy, and minimizing free energy drives perspective taking, switching between perception, imagination, and action. Consciousness functions as an algorithm maximizing resilience by using projective perspective taking to escape local free energy minima. The model accounts for spatial phenomenology, distinctions between perception, imagination, and action, affective processes in intentionality, bistable figure dynamics, and body swap illusions. It relates phenomenology to function, suggesting computational advantages of consciousness and generating neurophenomenological hypotheses.