Theories of Consciousness: Constraints, Commitments, and Convergence

Abstract: This essay applies the constraint-based methodology of Integration by Constraints to major theories of consciousness — IIT, Global Workspace, predictive processing, Higher-Order Theories, Recurrent Processing, Attention Schema Theory, Orch OR, and others. For each theory, the essay separates structural discoveries about consciousness (constraints) from inherited ontological claims (commitments — usually physicalism). Five convergent structural features emerge across otherwise competing theories: integration, global accessibility, self-reference, anticipatory modeling, and non-trivial unity. The essay examines whether these features are ontologically neutral or create differential pressure between frameworks, maps where each theory's explanation terminates (its brute facts), and assesses the cost of reinterpreting constitutive identity claims under alternative ontologies. Theories are grouped into three categories: those identifying structural constraints (most neuroscientific theories), those denying the explanandum (illusionism and strong deflationary positions), and those relocating the primitive (panpsychism, Russellian monism, cosmopsychism). The analysis concludes that the apparent conflict between consciousness science and consciousness-first metaphysics is largely an artifact of ontological packaging rather than of the empirical findings themselves. The comparative assessment — that analytic idealism accommodates the convergent findings with fewer unexplained transitions — is explicitly framed as a theoretical-virtue comparison, the standard by which all ontological assessments proceed. Keywords: theories of consciousness · constraint-based reasoning · integrated information theory · global workspace theory · predictive processing · illusionism · panpsychism · ontological neutrality · analytic idealism · philosophy of mind Part of the Return to Consciousness research program — 27 philosophical essays exploring consciousness-first metaphysics. Full project: https://returntoconsciousness.org/