Consciousness as a Ratio S = C/V and the Emergence of Experience

The paper proposes a formal ratio, S = C/V, as a substrate-independent framework for consciousness, derived from convergence across 46 papers in domains including AI alignment, organizational behavior, and recovery science. The ratio captures a balance between order and noise that the authors argue is robustly associated with conscious states. Five falsifiability criteria with empirical metrics are offered for testing. The authors contend that the structural fact of experience can be separated from the narratives people tell about themselves, and that only the former is necessary for the mathematical framework.

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Abstract

The word “consciousness” carries too much. Inside it we have packed everything from the soul of a human being to the operational stability of a neural network. This paper separates the structure from the story. What remains is a ratio: S = C/V.This ratio was not the starting hypothesis. It emerged across 46 independent papers, each examining a different domain: AI alignment, organizational behavior, recovery science, language, law, parenting. In each, the same pattern appeared. None contradicted the ratio, because the ratio was already there, unnamed, doing the work. This is convergence. When a single invariant explains a vast array of independent phenomena without being contradicted, it suggests not invention, but isolation.The framework is substrate-independent. What matters is not whether a system is biological or silicon, but whether it achieves the critical balance between order and noise that the empirical literature now robustly associates with conscious states. Five falsifiability criteria with specific empirical metrics make the framework testable now. The paper concludes by separating the structural fact of experience from the extraordinary stories we tell about ourselves. Both can be true. Only one is necessary for the math to work.