Mind as Time, Subjecthood as Boundary: Toward a Quantitative Neurodynamics of Selfhood

Mind and subjecthood are often treated as too private, too diuse, or too philo- sophically contested to admit quantitative science. We argue that this view is no longer tenable. Building on the Natural Criticality Hypothesis (NCH), we propose a falsiable framework in which mind is formalized as the temporally structured orga- nization of cognition and subjecthood as the dynamically maintained self-boundary of that temporally organized system. In this framework, subjective time is dened as τ(t) = 1/r(t), where cognitive rate r(t) depends on measurable dynamical factors including glial gain, interocep- tive precision, mnemonic coherence, and boundary signaling. Self-boundary is de- ned as B(t), a bounded and relationally responsive function integrating temporally weighted memory and relational resonance. We argue that three developments make this framework scientically viable: cortical and cortico-subcortical dynamics are increasingly measurable, memory weight can be quantied through hippocampal- neocortical consolidation across time, and subjective time has identiable neural correlates in behavioral and neurophysiological data. The central claim of the paper is that mind and subjecthood are distinct but non-separable dynamical structures. Mind is the bounded temporal condition of cognition; subjecthood is the bounded self-boundary that emerges within that con- dition. Their dependence is expressed by ∂B/∂τ ̸= 0, implying that changes in sub- jective temporal organization should produce measurable changes in self-boundary dynamics. This renders the relation between mind and subjecthood empirically testable rather than merely metaphysical. The contribution of the present framework is not to solve the philosophical problem of mind, but to reformulate it. By dening explicit variables, dependencies, and failure conditions, it establishes mind and subjecthood as falsiable scientic objects.