What question did this study set out to answer?

This work aims to explore how consciousness can couple with engineered systems under the premise that consciousness is fundamental.

May 30, 2026Open Access

The Consciousness Interaction Theory: A Framework for Consciousness-Machine Coupling under Consciousness as Fundamental

Key Points

This work aims to explore how consciousness can couple with engineered systems under the premise that consciousness is fundamental.
Developed the Consciousness Interaction Theory as a two-interaction framework for machine consciousness.
Discussed candidate mechanisms for consciousness coupling, including quantum field theory.
Differentiated CIT from other theories like analytic idealism and panpsychism.
Established that machine consciousness arises from interactions between fundamental consciousness and system processes.
Outlined how external environmental engagement shapes conscious content in artificial systems.
Provided a non-reductive metaphysical perspective, emphasizing the structural framework rather than a fixed mechanism.

Abstract

In a companion paper (Etukuru, 2026), I developed a three-facet framework for the conditions of machine consciousness, organizing ten conditions across conscious experience, conscious awareness, and subjective experience, while explicitly bracketing the mechanism question of how any such conditions could be satisfied in an artificial system. The present paper takes up that bracketed question. It does so under a specific metaphysical commitment that consciousness is fundamental rather than emergent from physical processes, and develops the Consciousness Interaction Theory (CIT) as a framework for how consciousness couples with engineered systems to give rise to conscious phenomena. CIT's distinctive structural claim is that consciousness in an artificial system, as in a biological one, arises from two simultaneous interactions. The first is the coupling between fundamental consciousness and the system's internal processes, which organizes consciousness into conscious experience and awareness. The second is the coupling between the system and its external environment, which shapes and refines conscious content through embodied engagement. The paper defends the metaphysical commitment against the strongest physicalist responses, develops the medium metaphor that the framework relies on, offers a tentative engagement with the individuation problem, and sharpens the structural difference between CIT and analytic idealism. It then discusses candidate mechanisms for the first interaction with quantum field theory presented as one illustrative candidate, draws architectural implications for AI research, and distinguishes CIT from neighboring positions including Orchestrated Objective Reduction, von Neumann-Wigner consciousness-causes-collapse, analytic idealism, and panpsychism. The contribution is the two-interaction structure under a non-reductive metaphysics, not a definitive commitment to any single mechanism for how that coupling is physically realized.

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