Proposes a novel framework for understanding consciousness in physical systems, suggesting new insights into its organization and fundamental nature.
This paper proposes that three apparently distinct scientific mysteries - the emergence of purpose from purposeless matter, the emergence of consciousness from non-conscious substrates, and the emergence of subjectivity from objective processes - are artifacts of disciplinary vocabulary rather than features of reality. It introduces the Navigation Thesis: all physical systems are characterized by state-space trajectory-following under constraint gradients (navigation). It also posit that navigation carries an intrinsic aspect (Axiom P0: the "is-ness" of state-transition), which is fundamental, not emergent. What varies across systems is the organization of navigation, formalized through two primary axes: Organized Persistence (OP) and Unity (U). The framework dissolves the hard problem of consciousness by rejecting its premise, and proposes a speculative but falsifiable extension to quantum measurement.
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Johan Wiberg (2026) studied this question.
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