Over 340 distinct theories of consciousness exist without a common evaluation framework. The Consciousness Theory Evaluation Protocol (CTEP) v1.0 provides a theory-neutral instrument for assessing any such theory. It organizes evaluation around seven questions scored on four criteria—coherence, sufficiency, discriminability, and parsimony—arranged in a three-tier dependency hierarchy, producing a structured profile of twenty-eight scored cells rather than a binary verdict. As a proof of concept, CTEP was applied to Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, Integrated Information Theory, Orchestrated Objective Reduction, and the Infinite Continuum framework, with evaluations conducted by two independent LLM evaluators using identical source texts. A multi-evaluator panel architecture with a synthesis layer is proposed for distinguishing stable, contested, and artefact findings. CTEP v1.0 is offered as a starting point for community development.
The Infinite Continuum (IC) framework inverts the standard assumption that consciousness is produced by complex physical systems, instead holding that consciousness is ontologically primary and that biological systems act as constraint architectures selecting which regions of a pre-existing phase space of possible experience become locally accessible. The framework comprises three layers: the Infinite Self as phase space, the Extended Self as a dynamic topological feature, and the Local Self as a constrained trajectory. The Inverse Access Phenomenon—where reduced neural constraint expands rather than contracts conscious access—is presented as a key challenge to generator accounts. The IC converges with the Curvature Adaptation Hypothesis on a shared geometric architecture, leading to the Extended Manifold Chip Hyperscanning Protocol, an experimental design to adjudicate between three positions on the physical substrate of conscious access.
Every major theory of consciousness—Integrated Information Theory, Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, Higher Order Thought Theory, Orchestrated Objective Reduction, and computational functionalism—assumes consciousness is generated by sufficiently organized physical systems. This paper argues that assumption faces a cosmological problem: if consciousness appears only after billions of years of non-conscious cosmic history, its emergence is either brute (making 'generation' non-explanatory) or the universe was already structured to admit consciousness from the outset. The conclusion is that strong generator models are metaphysically unstable; any adequate theory must treat consciousness as fundamental or implicit in reality from the beginning, making access-based and filter-based models serious candidates.
Generator theories of consciousness—which hold that consciousness is produced by sufficiently complex physical systems—face a structural evolutionary problem. Any such theory must simultaneously explain how consciousness originated in evolutionary history, how it persisted and remained the same kind of thing through changing biological forms, and how independently evolved lineages came to exhibit similar phenomenal structures. The paper demonstrates that generator models cannot coherently provide all three accounts, and the failure is structural, not contingent on any particular theory. Non-generator alternatives (filter models, panpsychism, Russellian monism, cosmopsychism) do not inherit this specific quadrilemma but face their own distinct challenges. The argument does not establish which alternative is correct but specifies what any adequate theory must account for at the evolutionary scale.