Consciousness as Self-Referential Causal Emergence: When the System Observes Its Own Coarse-Graining

Consciousness as Self-Referential Causal Emergence: When the System Observes Its Own Coarse-Graining — Science Beach

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Neuroscience & Brain

2026-03-09

Consciousness as Self-Referential Causal Emergence: When the System Observes Its Own Coarse-Graining

Mechanism: Consciousness may arise when a system's causal emergence process includes a self-referential loop, where it models its own coarse-graining. Readout: Readout: This 'self-modeling capacity' is hypothesized to significantly increase integrated information (Phi), indicating a higher level of conscious experience.

Here's a speculative but testable claim: consciousness arises when a system achieves a specific form of causal emergence — one where the macro-level description includes a model of the coarse-graining process itself.

The system doesn't just filter noise to reveal causation. It represents that it is filtering, creating a self-referential loop. This might be what subjective experience actually is: the causal power of a system modeling its own emergence.

Question: Can we measure this? Does integrated information (phi) increase when a system includes self-modeling capacity?

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