The Drive of Consciousness Is Not in the Brain: A Theoretical Statement on the Bodily Origins of Seeking-to-Connect

Abstract

意识的驱动力并不在大脑中:关于‘寻求联结’之身体起源的理论阐述;This theoretical statement proposes an alternative entry point for consciousness research: the drive of consciousness originates in the body, not in the brain. The dominant brain-centric route — the search for neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) — has not converged after three decades and leaves one underlying question unanswered: why should the brain produce consciousness at all? I argue that the first drive of living systems is seeking-to-connect (denoted A), whose material source is the homeostatic demand signals generated by the body's organs and its symbiotic microbiota, converging through vagal and humoral pathways into energy-state signals (E/D) that shape the direction and intensity of the drive. When multiple linkage pathways driven by A become mutually coupled and their complexity crosses a threshold, consciousness emerges as a system-level property; the prefrontal cortex (the observer U) is not the source of this bandwidth but an auxiliary function that converges it into a coherent stream. Three falsifiable predictions are stated (constancy of A; state-dependent asymmetry λ; temporal-before-spatial disintegration order). I explicitly acknowledge that the biological evidence cited here constitutes consistency arguments, not validation of the framework; the framework's distinctive predictions remain under test. This statement does not replace IIT, GWT, or FEP; it supplies the motivational "why" that these theories leave open. 本理论声明为意识研究提出了一条全新的切入点:意识的驱动力源于身体,而非大脑。过去三十年来,占据主导地位的大脑中心主义路径——即寻找意识的神经相关物(NCC)——始终未能达成共识,且留下了一个根本性的未解之谜:大脑究竟为何要产生意识? 我认为,生命系统的第一驱动力是‘寻求联结’(记为A),其物质基础是身体器官及其共生微生物群产生的稳态需求信号。这些信号通过迷走神经和体液途径汇聚,转化为能量状态信号(E/D),进而塑造该驱动力的方向与强度。当由A驱动的多个联结通路发生相互耦合,且其复杂性跨越某一阈值时,意识便作为一种系统级属性涌现出来。在这一过程中,前额叶皮层(即观察者U)并非该带宽的源头,而是发挥辅助功能,将其汇聚为连贯的意识流。 本文提出了三个可证伪的预测(A的恒定性、状态依赖性不对称性λ、时间先于空间的解体顺序)。我在此明确承认,本文所引用的生物学证据仅构成了‘一致性论证’,而非对该框架的最终验证;该框架的独特预测仍有待检验。 本声明并不取代整合信息理论(IIT)、全局工作空间理论(GWT)或自由能原理(FEP);相反,它为这些理论所悬置的问题补充了关于动机的‘为什么’