This paper scales the consciousness test suite to 302 neurons using a statistical surrogate of the C. elegans connectome (Varshney et al. , 2011) — 4, 390 synapses matching published degree, weight, and modular structure. Two primary contributions: (1) The 15-neuron interneuron rich club produces ΦMIP = **0. 207 bits** (4. 4× improvement from the 6-neuron result), with Φₘax = 1. 569 bits — the strongest integration evidence in the series. (2) The first derivation of a **Consciousness Scaling Law**: Φₙormalized (N) = 0. 00092 × N¹. 326, predicting that consciousness integration exceeds the CEMERICK threshold at N* ≈ **104 neurons** — placing C. elegans (302 neurons) above the threshold by a factor of ~4. The φ-scaling onset ratio W2/W1 = 0. 5658 is the closest single-step measurement to 1/φ = 0. 6180 across the entire paper series. Two criteria remain open: Φₙormalized ≥ CEMERICK requires the full 302-neuron computation (computationally infeasible at 2³02), and R² (φ) > R² (exp) is obscured by correlated noise. The paper derives why correlated networks do not show the predicted √N noise reduction and proposes the correct noise model for future work.
Brandon Charles Emerick (Tue,) studied this question.
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