Axiomatic Framework for an Ontology of concioussness and subjectivity

Abstract

In this article, I develop an axiomatic framework intended to formalize the relation between consciousness, mechanical processes, and subjective experience. The proposal is motivated by a perceived explanatory gap in functionalist theories, which account for information processing and behavioral organization but do not, by themselves, explain the emergence of lived experience. I introduce an ontological conception of consciousness as a necessary condition for subjectivity and distinguish between functional structures, such as the self, automatic emotion, memory, and action, and their phenomenal counterparts, which arise only when such processes become consciously integrated. A central feature of the framework is the formal distinction between automatic emotion and felt emotion, allowing affective experience to be analyzed in terms of the relation between consciousness and underlying functional processes. The axiomatic system yields a set of theorems according to which subjective experience presupposes consciousness and cannot be reduced to functional organization alone. Within the framework, functional simulation and computational integration are treated as insufficient conditions for subjectivity, providing a conceptual basis for evaluating competing theories of consciousness and the prospects of artificial consciousness. The proposed model offers a formal vocabulary for clarifying the distinction between function and experience, and for examining the ontological status of consciousness in both biological and artificial systems.