Stripping the landscape
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) September 14, 2026 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22749667 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that applying five filters to roughly 500 catalogued theories of consciousness leaves only one position, Natural Human Consciousness, which treats consciousness as an intrinsic developmental default accessible through direct first-person observation. Proposes that theorizing about consciousness from a third-person perspective may itself create the explanatory gap other theories attempt to bridge. |
Abstract
Abstract Robert Lawrence Kuhn’s Landscape of Consciousness (2024; expanded 2025–2026) catalogues approximately 500 theories of consciousness across 11 primary categories, representing humanity’s broadest attempts to explain subjective experience. This paper applies a series of sequential, self-consistent filters to the entire taxonomy, asking a simple question: what remains when we remove everything that is not consciousness describing itself? Five filters are applied: (1) collapsing overlapping variants into distinct positions, (2) removing theories rooted in spiritual, religious, or philosophical teaching traditions, (3) removing theories that deny or fail to account for first-person experience, (4) removing theories influenced by external interventions, and (5) removing theories built on scientific, mathematical, or formal frameworks. The result is a single surviving position: Natural Human Consciousness (Wijn, 2026), which describes consciousness as an intrinsic developmental default accessible through direct, unmediated first-person observation. The filtering process itself reveals a meta-finding: the very act of theorizing about consciousness from a third-person perspective may be what creates the explanatory gap that all other theories attempt to bridge.