Consciousness as Dimensionality Expansion: The Organism–Environment–Generativity Model of Experience
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) June 27, 2026 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20973987 (opens in new tab) via OpenAlex
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractConsciousness is reframed as an event of expanding experiential dimensions within the organism–environment relation, driven by a third structural term called generativity. Traditional theories assume fixed experiential dimensions and cannot explain the emergence of new perceptual, affective, symbolic, or reflective modes. The triadic model—coherence (organism), constraint (environment), and generativity (independent mode introduction)—provides the minimal structure for conscious experience and its expansion. Consciousness is defined as the coherent stabilization of experiential dimensionality under generative pressure. This framework dissolves the hard problem, unifies biological and cognitive accounts, explains symbolic and cultural experience, and establishes the structural impossibility of artificial consciousness while allowing for non-conscious artificial experiential architectures.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Experiential learning Artificial consciousness Generative grammar Curse of dimensionality Impossibility |
| Key finding | Proposes that consciousness is the coherent stabilization of experiential dimensionality under generative pressure, and that this triadic model dissolves the hard problem and establishes the structural impossibility of artificial consciousness. |
Abstract
This paper reframes consciousness as a dimensionality expansion event within the organism–environment relation, driven by a third structural term: generativity. Traditional biological, computational, and representational theories assume fixed experiential dimensions and therefore cannot explain the emergence of new perceptual, affective, symbolic, or reflective modes. The triadic model introduced here—coherence (organism), constraint (environment), and generativity (independent mode introduction)—provides the minimal structure capable of supporting conscious experience and its expansion. Consciousness is defined as the coherent stabilization of experiential dimensionality under generative pressure. This framework dissolves the hard problem, unifies biological and cognitive accounts, explains symbolic and cultural experience, and establishes the structural impossibility of artificial consciousness while allowing for non‑conscious artificial experiential architectures. The paper situates consciousness within the same generative architecture that drives evolution, cognition, culture, and technological experience.