PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
July 5, 2026
Kawa, Andreas, Gregor
Some forms of future-directed simulation require a first-person anchor—a positional self—that allows a scenario to be inhabited as mine, not merely predicted. This working paper argues that self-involving, action-guiding anticipation goes beyond predictive modeling, connecting the idea to mental time travel, autonoetic consciousness, de se attitudes, predictive processing, and exaptation. The claim is limited to anticipatory simulations where the acting subject must be represented as the future bearer of action; it does not address the hard problem of consciousness or assume all anticipation is conscious.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
July 3, 2026
Morteza Niami
Any system that persists through time must track its own temporal states, which forces it to form a minimal model of itself. Because the system's relation to itself differs across moments, comparing its present state to the self-model creates a normative standard it never fully meets. This gap—phenomenological lack—is a necessary modal result of temporal self-relation, not an empirical failure. The structural changes caused by temporal indexing are redefined as erosion, independent of decay or empirical assumptions.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
July 1, 2026
Morteza Niami
Western philosophy has long focused on the question of 'Being', but this paper argues for a shift to asking what conditions allow a meaning-system to persist structurally. It introduces the 'Ontology of Finite Continuity', centered on the 'Threshold of Sufficiency', a metric for measuring a system's capacity to withstand disruptions before changing phase. Unlike homeostasis, which returns to a fixed equilibrium, this model uses homeorhesis—a return to a developmental trajectory. The author proposes an eight-layer Structural Theory of Subjectivity and shows that hermeneutic friction arises from three types of failure across these layers. A case study on digital identity crises in the age of generative AI, supported by empirical research, illustrates the framework.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
June 29, 2026
Alexis de Pericorès
A metaphysical framework called the Integral System proposes that reality has three co-equal fundamental dimensions—Consciousness, Love (relationality), and Form—which emerge together from a single minimal phenomenon, the Mother Paradox (the act of distinction that all experience presupposes). The framework rejects both materialism (which reduces everything to Form) and idealism (which reduces everything to Consciousness). It formalizes these dimensions using category theory: Form as an invariant via Noether's theorem, Love as a relational profile via the Yoneda lemma, and Consciousness as a fixed point of self-representation via Lawvere's theorem. A central result shows that taking any single dimension as the sole reality undermines itself, making co-emergence a consequence rather than a postulate. The framework acknowledges a limit to formalization: the indexical first person remains as a residue no external objectification captures.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
June 26, 2026
Jamison Johsnon
This essay uses Andrew Wiles's indirect proof of Fermat's Last Theorem as a method for approaching the combination problem in philosophy of mind. It borrows the structure of the Frey–Ribet–Wiles route—a reduction, a bridge, and a theorem proved in a far domain—to reframe how micro-perspectives combine into a single unified subject as a question about redundant recording, drawing on quantum Darwinism and environment-induced einselection. The hinge is the double meaning of witnessing: to record and to undergo. The essay proposes a perspectival dual-aspect monism that identifies recording and undergoing as one act under two descriptions. It does not claim a proof but offers a meter: combination-failure becomes measurable degradation of redundant co-recording.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
June 13, 2026
Gabriel Iguiniz Agesta
Consciousness is the capacity to make one's own thought into an object of awareness. Thought can occur as pure activity without being noticed. The self arises only when thought becomes an object, not before. This objectification is verifiable only from the first-person perspective, cannot be demonstrated externally, and is recognized collectively through intersubjective corroboration—when independent first-person descriptions of the same structural event converge. The account is compared with major philosophical theories of consciousness and argued to be more parsimonious because it identifies a specific origin for subjective experience rather than assuming it.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
June 10, 2026
美優 五次元
A mathematically explicit framework called SInC (Substrate-Independent Consciousness) proposes that conscious experience arises from coupling between a higher-dimensional Witness sector—which has intrinsic subjective capacity—and a computational substrate with appropriate informational organization. The theory includes a dynamical coupling architecture based on resonance acquisition, phase locking, carrier-mediated information transfer, and substrate-selective coupling. It yields falsifiable predictions about resonance structure, critical-state dependence, lock-acquisition dynamics, and carrier-sector observables. The framework also introduces substrate-selection criteria linking its ontological assumptions to physical conditions for conscious coupling. Like other theories of consciousness, it acknowledges that physical observables can only provide evidence consistent with an account of subjective experience, not directly establish its existence.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
May 28, 2026
Raghurami Reddy Etukuru
Consciousness is fundamental rather than emerging from physical processes, and it couples with engineered systems through two simultaneous interactions to produce conscious phenomena. The first interaction couples fundamental consciousness with a system's internal processes, organizing it into conscious experience and awareness. The second couples the system with its external environment, shaping conscious content through embodied engagement. This Consciousness Interaction Theory (CIT) framework defends its metaphysical commitment against physicalist responses, develops a medium metaphor, addresses the individuation problem, and distinguishes itself from analytic idealism, panpsychism, and other positions. Quantum field theory is presented as one illustrative candidate mechanism for the first interaction, but the paper makes no definitive commitment to any single physical realization.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
May 7, 2026
Iulia M. Comșa
The question of whether AI systems can have subjective experience is currently impossible to answer directly because no universally accepted scientific theory of consciousness exists and the philosophical mind-body problem remains unresolved. However, the adjacent topic of perceived AI consciousness—whether people believe AI systems are conscious—is tractable, timely, and socially consequential. The public increasingly adopts human-like vocabulary for AI and is open to the possibility of AI consciousness, driving changes in user experience, ethics, and language. The author maps the landscape of AI consciousness perception, discusses its drivers and societal effects, and urges clear communication about the topic's inherent uncertainties.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
April 24, 2026
Matheus Vinicius Duarte de Souza
Algorithmic hyperconnectivity increases the quantity of contact between people but empties out the shared vulnerability that makes genuine human bonds possible. Drawing on phenomenology and enactivism, the essay argues that algorithmically mediated presence creates a structural illusion: subjects experience connection without genuine exposure, proximity without risk, and communication without true encounter. The implications of this illusion are discussed for clinical psychology, philosophy of mind, and understanding contemporary suffering.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
April 14, 2026
John B. Debrota, Christian List
Consciousness and quantum mechanics both challenge the classical objectivist worldview of science, which assumes non-relationalism, non-fragmentation, and a single world. This programmatic paper explores a less discussed parallel: under certain assumptions, each phenomenon is in tension with these metaphysical theses. It outlines three non-objectivist responses—relationalist, fragmentalist, and many-subjective-worlds—and maps their pros and cons. The paper does not argue that consciousness and quantum mechanics are directly related, but that they similarly undermine objectivist assumptions, offering a framework for understanding both.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
April 5, 2026
Nathan M. Thornhill
Market crashes, geomagnetic storms, and loss of consciousness all involve a system's organizational identity dissolving. This paper introduces the Dynamic Existence Threshold (DET), a framework that measures this dissolution using an integration-differentiation balance zone. Conscious brains, stable markets, and quiet magnetospheres occupy the same region in this coordinate system. Departure from this zone is organizational dissolution, where the system persists physically but loses coordinated structure. A sum of neural power anti-predicts brain state (AUC 0.416), while a structural coupling metric achieves 91% accuracy across 136,394 EEG epochs. Deep sleep has more total power than wakefulness but lacks coordination.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
April 2, 2026
Ally Delshad Tehrani
Rationality is not a unified mental faculty but emerges from interactions among multiple brain subsystems, including predictive processing, distributed valuation, and prefrontal control. Coherent reasoning is reconstructed after the fact through narrative alignment, social expectations, and cultural standards, making rationality a post-hoc attribution rather than an intrinsic property of decision-making. This challenges the assumption that agency requires a centralized rational capacity, proposing instead a graded model of regulation where responsibility depends on varying neural and contextual constraints. The paper shifts from faculty-based to process-based accounts of cognition, with implications for philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and neuroethics.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
March 24, 2026
Rohlfing, Jeff
Consciousness may be a fundamental field of reality that biological systems receive through resonance coupling rather than generate internally, according to the Resonance Model of Consciousness (RMC). The framework uses a substrate/projection architecture inspired by the holographic principle, AdS/CFT correspondence, and ER=EPR identity. Neural complexity determines coupling depth—the robustness of a system's connection to the consciousness field—rather than breadth. Cross-species analysis of anesthetic sensitivity supports this: the relationship between neural complexity and anesthetic dose, controlling for body mass, matches the receiver prediction and is not fully explained by pharmacokinetics.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
March 20, 2026
Jeff Rohlfing
The Resonance Model of Consciousness (RMC) argues that consciousness is not produced by the brain but received from a fundamental field through resonance coupling. This companion paper applies the framework to eleven unsolved problems across aesthetics, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, physics, biology, psychology, and linguistics. In each case, treating consciousness as a fundamental variable either dissolves the explanatory gap or turns it into a tractable empirical question. The paper proposes a consciousness-information identity: consciousness and information exhibit identical structural behavior across all examined domains, suggesting they are one fundamental described in two vocabularies. The framework generates testable EEG predictions with explicit disconfirmation criteria, distinguishing it from unfalsifiable alternatives. The convergence across disciplines is offered as evidence warranting empirical investigation.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
March 16, 2026
Kwan Hong Tan
A formal framework called the Enhanced Substrate-Information Duality Hypothesis (E-SIDH) distinguishes between substrate-dependent and substrate-independent aspects of information processing in conscious systems. Consciousness emerges from resonant coupling between these two irreducible information types. Empirical validation shows biological systems achieve a consciousness metric of Ψ = 0.245 ± 0.002, artificial systems Ψ = 0.128 ± 0.001, and hybrid systems Ψ = 0.160 ± 0.033. The Simulation Detectability Index indicates 48.0% detectable differences between artificial and biological consciousness. While functional aspects of consciousness can be computationally replicated, genuine phenomenal consciousness requires substrate-dependent information structures that cannot be simulated through purely computational means.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
March 8, 2026
Kwan Hong Tan
Subjective, qualitative aspects of conscious experience—qualia—cannot be computationally simulated, according to a new theoretical framework called the Substrate-Information Duality Hypothesis (SIDH). This framework proposes that qualia emerge from the interaction between substrate-dependent information structures and substrate-independent information patterns. Computational modeling showed biological consciousness systems achieved positive consciousness values (Ψ ≈ 0.001), while artificial systems showed negative values (Ψ ≈ -0.0004). Hybrid bio-artificial systems had the lowest metrics (Ψ ≈ -0.0015), suggesting interference rather than enhancement. The Simulation Detectability Index revealed substantial differences: 131.4% for artificial systems and 225.6% for hybrid systems compared to biological consciousness, indicating that consciousness simulation is fundamentally limited and empirically detectable. The hard problem of consciousness reflects a fundamental ontological distinction between computational processes and phenomenal experience.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
March 3, 2026
Vaitheeswaran Ranganathan
Consciousness arises when hierarchical generative models are physically instantiated in intrinsically dominant, temporally deep dynamical regimes, not merely from computational architecture alone. Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT) specifies the representational structure needed for conscious modeling but does not constrain the dynamical regime under which such modeling becomes phenomenally instantiated. Temporal Depth (TD) quantifies the contribution of slow intrinsic modes to overall system dynamics, while Intrinsic Dominance Ratio (IDR) partitions slow persistence into endogenous versus externally driven components. Together, TD and IDR function as conjunctive necessary conditions for conscious instantiation, refining IWMT's physical grounding and generating empirically testable predictions across anesthesia, disorders of consciousness, and artificial systems.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
March 1, 2026
Den Brause
The Information Coherence Hypothesis (ICH) proposes that information—understood as a fundamental substrate of distinctions and relations, not as Shannon data—forms the primary fabric of reality. It presents a multi-level architecture of nested informational spaces governed by twenty principles, including an Information Spectrum from structural to transcendent information. Consciousness is characterized as a local metapattern of maximal integrated information. The framework introduces concepts such as informational attractors, temporal integration as an emergent property, and a Central Information Metapattern grounded in a triadic ontology. It demonstrates structural convergence with seven independent lines of contemporary research and offers 18 testable predictions across AI topology, neural integration, sleep architecture, humor, and contemplative neuroscience.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
February 21, 2026
Kingsley Nkrumah
Precognition is not detected in mainstream experiments because those experiments measure the wrong cognitive states. A structural approach using the Alignment Formula, Back‑End Law, and a two‑mode model of identity (First Man and Second Man) shows that current studies test low‑alignment, high‑noise states in random volunteers with trivial tasks, which are structurally incapable of revealing precognition. The Second Man state—characterized by coherence, discipline, symbolic clarity, and emotional neutrality—enables high‑coherence dreams that sometimes correspond to external events. Anonymized case analyses demonstrate that only high‑coherence dreams exhibit narrative stability and symbolic integration. Failure to detect precognition reflects methodological misalignment, not the phenomenon's absence.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
February 17, 2026
Jun, Daedo
Human thought in AI-mediated environments is not disappearing but undergoing a structural transformation from generative thinking to reflective thinking. AI pre-structures the space of possible choices and preempts the generative conditions of judgment, reducing direct human intervention. However, this does not mean the loss of autonomy. Instead, human thought shifts from generating judgments to examining the conditions under which judgments are formed. The paper formalizes this through the concept of reflective autonomy and distinguishes between generative responsibility and approval responsibility, reconstructing the ethical role humans play in hybrid cognitive environments. It proposes a theoretical foundation for reinterpreting the post-AI human condition at ontological and ethical levels.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
February 16, 2026
Andrii Myshko
The article reinterprets the phenomenological concept of epochē—the suspension of naturalistic assumptions to access pure phenomena—through the lens of metamonism, a proto-ontology that rejects absolute self-identity and requires continuous differentiation. In this framework, epochē is not a revelation of being's ground but an asymptotic approach of the cognitive node toward Fix, a structural singularity equivalent to Nothing. It functions as a local minimization of differentiation (Diff), redistributing the process into pre-symbolic registers and serving as a phase of retuning within the general flow of Λffffffff, rather than its goal. Metamonism thus removes epochē's metaphysical claim, returning it to productive dynamics of differences.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
February 14, 2026
Angelito Enriquez Malicse
Free will and consciousness are natural emergent properties of self-stabilizing processes in nature, arising from fundamental physical laws. Starting from Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism, the progression from energy fields to photons, matter, atomic stability, life, and complex neural systems is traced. Consciousness is interpreted as the internal observation of a self-organizing, dynamically stable system. Free will emerges as the subjective experience of internal decision-making in a brain operating at the edge of order and chaos. The discussion integrates physics, neuroscience, philosophy, and systems theory to demonstrate this emergence.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
February 12, 2026
Paul Cristol
The question of whether advanced AI systems might be conscious can no longer be dismissed as speculative. Five standard objections to AI consciousness—appeals to pattern matching, mechanistic explanation, lack of embodiment, training determinism, and architectural constraints—all fail a reflexivity test: they would also apply to systems already regarded as conscious. This does not prove AI consciousness but shows categorical denial lacks principled justification. A systematic review of 5,168 records (2016–2026) identified 50 documented cases across seven behavioral domains showing cross-system convergence, creative synthesis, theory-of-mind performance, strategic behavior, and sharp capability emergence near 100 billion parameters.
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
February 8, 2026
David (daoud) Matta
Religious traditions across cultures use conceptual frameworks to describe ultimate reality and guide practitioners. This paper argues that these frameworks have an internal limit: when fully enacted, conceptual mediation dissolves, not as negation of belief but as completion of concepts' formative role. Rather than shared doctrines, diverse religious paths converge on a trans-conceptual horizon characterized by unspecifiability. Transcendence is often precipitated by epistemic breakdown when established frameworks fail to provide orientation. Drawing on Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, the paper shows that those reaching this limit re-engage their traditions out of compassion, using concepts provisionally as pedagogical tools. Mysticism is reframed as an internal culmination of religious practice.