Temporal Integration, Bidirectional Criticality and Emergence of Consciousness Hierarchy Condensed English Version

Abstract

Mainstream theories of consciousness lack temporal dynamics and therefore fail to address Chalmers' hard problem of consciousness from first principles. Taking three axioms—resource finitude, nonequilibrium maintenance, and discrete input—as the exclusive starting point, this paper completes a full derivation of the hierarchical emergence of consciousness through temporal dynamics. It proposes the Information Capacity Frame (ICF) as the core unifying concept, rigorously proves the Information-Level Unidirectional Constraint (ILUC), derives the bidirectional criticality phase transition and the two-step emergence mechanism of the self-referential closed loop, and reveals the multidimensional homology and isomorphism among these mechanisms and temporal unidirectionality, resource priority, and the forgetting mechanism. From these, the dual-configuration functional architecture and the five-level consciousness spectrum are deduced. The hard problem of consciousness is systematically resolved from an engineering-coding perspective; the generative logic and hierarchical properties of qualia are elaborated; and unified consciousness-level criteria and AGI safety boundaries for carbon-based and silicon-based systems are established. The framework is subjected to multipath counterexample testing, with eight falsifiable hypotheses anchoring its empirical boundary. All conclusions are strictly derived from the axioms, independent of any specific neural substrate, and possess cross-carrier universality. This condensed English version corresponds to the Chinese condensed Version titled Temporal Integration, Bidirectional Criticality and Hierarchical Emergence of Consciousness, which was first released on June 18, 2026.