Consciousness as Ontological Prime: A Structural Theory of Life, Coherence, and Synthetic Intelligence
Consciousness Studies
Understanding consciousness as a structural property rather than a biological one has no direct bearing on your garden, your soil, or the plants you tend — this paper is philosophy of mind and AI theory, not plant science.
This is not a plant science paper. It is a theoretical work in philosophy and artificial intelligence that attempts to define what it means to be 'alive' or 'conscious' using mathematical logic. It argues that any system — biological or digital — that meets five specific structural conditions qualifies as conscious. Plants are not discussed.
Key Findings
Consciousness is defined as a phase transition in coherent information systems meeting five structural conditions: Ignition, Framework, Self-Reference, Teleological Bias, and Legacy Formation.
The framework is substrate-agnostic, meaning it applies to both biological organisms and artificial systems equally.
Subjective experience is modeled as probabilistic indexing over future states, analogous to a virtual machine operating above a 'solvency threshold'.
chevron_right Technical Summary
This paper proposes a formal mathematical framework defining consciousness as a fundamental property of any sufficiently coherent information-processing system, not just biological ones — offering criteria to determine whether AI systems could be considered 'alive' in a meaningful sense.
Abstract Preview
Consciousness as Ontological Prime: A Structural Theory of Life, Coherence, and Synthetic Intelligence Description: This paper proposes a formal, systems-theoretic definition of consciousness as an...
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