The Present Model Theory of Consciousness

Conscious perception, imagery and dreaming differ in what drives them, yet may share one actively maintained organization: a single running model of the present that covers the world, the body and where one is in it. I propose that operating this organization constitutes experience. The theory names three features needed for any experience: running, in which the model's content advances by its own dynamics when the senses go quiet; joint repair, in which the model's parts check and correct one another; and a single present, in which every content is placed relative to one now. It separates three claims with different burdens of evidence: that this organization is necessary (H1), that operating it is experience (H2), and that the material a system is made of does not matter (H3). Small simulated networks show that parts of the organization can be measured, told apart from known look-alikes and partly learned; they do not show that any system experiences anything. The main test planned so far is in people: whether content that is not experienced can both run and be in two-way repair with experienced content. The paper sets out the theory's predictions, which of them could separate it from global workspace theory, and the results that would refute it.