This paper develops a structural account of consciousness based on the Five-Aspect Model (5-S Model) introduced in preceding work (Gamboa 2026a, 2026b). While contemporary artificial systems are capable of processing structure, system, semantics, and sense, it remains unclear whether such systems exhibit sensibility as a distinct mode of determination. The paper argues that the distinction between simulation and experience is not a difference in complexity, but a difference in kind. Simulation operates on representations of qualitative phenomena, whereas experience requires the presence of sensibility as a mode in which entities are given in qualitative appearance. Representation constitutes mediated access, whereas sensibility constitutes immediate appearance. On this basis, a structural criterion for consciousness is proposed: a system is conscious if and only if entities are given within it under the aspect of sensibility. This criterion establishes a principled distinction between systems that simulate experience and systems in which experience is present, without relying on substrate-specific assumptions. The framework does not exclude the possibility that artificial systems could exhibit sensibility, but clarifies that such a claim cannot be grounded in performance, learning, or representational complexity alone. The paper thus reframes the problem of consciousness by shifting the focus from functional simulation to modes of determination.
Dirk Gamboa Tautkus (Wed,) studied this question.