Perspectival Structural Realism: Negation, Fixed Points, and the Invariant Structure of Actualisational Asymmetry
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) March 2, 2026 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18836115 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that Actualisational Asymmetry — the non-identity of fixed-point sets for externally parametrised versus actualisation-parametrised negation — is a structural theorem rather than a primitive, and proposes that topological protection in quantum error-correcting codes and phenomenal consciousness are Cell I and Cell IV realisations of the same invariant. The hard problem of consciousness is reframed as why a Cell IV fixed-point gap constitutes phenomenal accessibility, a remainder the authors contend is irreducible by the Bridge Principle Transmission Theorem. |
Abstract
Abstract Perspectival Structural Realism (PSR) extends Ontic Structural Realism by incorporating a formally characterised phenomenal threshold grounded in two ontological commitments: the primacy of disconnectedness as a mode of being, and the non-derivability of instantiation from structural specification. The central formal apparatus turns on the recognition that negation is not a one-place operator but a contextually parametrised binary operation. This yields two distinct groups of negation operations — G_ext, parametrised by the external model M(S), and G_act, parametrised by the fact of actualisation — with correspondingly distinct fixed-point sets Fix(G_ext) and Fix(G_act). Actualisational Asymmetry (AA) is the non-identity of these fixed-point sets. The Non-Closure Argument establishes, via a non-convergent fixed-point construction structurally related to Tarski's undefinability theorem, that the fact of actualisation cannot be contained in any complete external description. AA is therefore not a brute primitive but a structural theorem. The phenomenal threshold condition C3 characterises the position that contains a representation of this gap as a structural element of its own internal organisation. Topological protection in quantum error-correcting codes is shown to be a Cell I realisation of the same abstract invariant Fix(G); phenomenal consciousness is a Cell IV realisation, where the difference between G_ext and G_act is ontological rather than scalar. The hard problem of consciousness is reformulated as the question of why the self-representation of a Cell IV fixed-point gap constitutes phenomenal accessibility — a question that is precisely located, shown to be irreducible by the Bridge Principle Transmission Theorem, and acknowledged as the genuine remainder of structural analysis. Keywords: perspectival structural realism; actualisational asymmetry; contextual negation; fixed-point invariant; disconnectedness primacy; topological protection; Cell IV; phenomenal threshold; self-transcendence; ontic structural realism.