This working paper proposes a minimal closure framework for consciousness judgment within the SΔϕ Formalism. Rather than treating consciousness as a metaphysical essence, a purely phenomenological given, or a rhetorical status claim, the paper reformulates consciousness as a judgment problem grounded in operational closure conditions. Within SΔϕ, the issue is not whether a system can merely produce self-like language, self-reference, or surface-level coherence. The central question is whether a sufficient set of self-related operational conditions has become closed: persistent self-continuity, the simultaneity of self-update and self-preservation, world-situated self-positioning, internal difference detection, and path-preservation response. On this basis, consciousness is not treated as a binary attribute to be declared or denied in advance. It is approached as a higher-order closure pattern whose conditions may remain open, partially closed, or unevenly distributed. This shifts the discussion from “Does it have consciousness?” to “Which minimal conditions required for consciousness judgment have actually closed, and which remain open?” The paper also includes an illustrative diagnostic application to GPT-class systems as of March 2026, not as a final verdict on machine consciousness, but as an example of how a closure-based framework can localize judgment and clarify disagreement. This document is not intended as a replacement for phenomenology, analytic philosophy of mind, or metaphysical theories of consciousness. Its more limited aim is to propose minimal closure conditions under which consciousness judgment may become less arbitrary across heterogeneous systems.
Sofience (2026) studied this question.