What consciousness is not
Consciousness is traditionally treated as something mystical - as a „soul“, as a metaphysical spark or as an emergent phenomenon that in principle defies explanation. The current models look like this: Either they are esoterically charged, speculative-metaphysical or they remain purely narrative and only describe, that we experience something without explaining, like and Why this experience arises in the first place.
This essay takes a different approach. It treats consciousness not as an exception to the laws of nature, but as the result of the same mechanics that determine planetary orbits, metabolism or electrical networks: deterministic causal chains in a structured system.
The guiding thesis is:
Consciousness is not transcendence - it is the mechanical delay that occurs when multiple deterministic pathways are simultaneously valid but not simultaneously executable in a highly complex biophysical system.
The aim is to present a model that fulfills five conditions:
- falsifiable: It makes verifiable predictions.
- causalIt works exclusively with cause-and-effect relationships.
- systemicIt views consciousness as part of nested levels.
- consistentNo statement negates another.
- Stable across domainsThe same functional principle applies in physics, biology and psychology.
Consciousness is thus not made smaller, but clearer: it is transferred from the foggy zone of metaphysics into the domain of precise, deterministic description.
Layered reality: How triadic systems generate complexity
In order to understand consciousness causally, one must consider the structure in which it can arise in the first place. Functional logic assumes that every stable level of reality is supported by a triad - three basic variables that limit, support and calibrate each other.
- Cosmic triad: energy, mass, space
At the most fundamental level, energy, mass and space determine all possible states. This triad determines that something exists, moves and interacts. - Planetary triad: geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere
Planetary systems are formed from the cosmic framework conditions. Geosphere (rocks, plates, core), hydrosphere (water in all its aggregate states) and atmosphere (gas envelope) together form the triadic structure in which stable surface processes are possible. - Biosphere triad: nutrient cycles, genetics, ecological selectors
Life is created on this basis. Nutrient cycles provide energy flows, genetic programs define building plans, ecological selectors decide which structures survive. Here, too, a triad is at work that generates stability through mutual limitation. - Noosphere triad: strength, morality, knowledge
It is only in the human sphere that the structures condense into what we know as culture, technology and psychology. Physical strength, normative order (morality) and cognitive models (knowledge) form a further triad that controls behaviour and stabilizes social systems.
The decisive factor is that none of these triads remain „pure“ as soon as they are interconnected higher up. Each pillar breaks down into sub-triads - such as different forms of strength, competing moral systems, different types of knowledge - which influence each other and sometimes contradict each other. With each additional level, the internal interconnection increases exponentially rather than linearly.
This exponential increase in triadic substructures is the basis for the fact that in a single organism there are ultimately so many valid but incompatible causal chains simultaneously that consciousness - as the mechanics of their prioritization - can arise at all.
Deterministic pathways: How biological systems generate competing causality
A living organism is not an open puzzle, but a closed causal system. Each of its actions - from the blink of an eye to a „life decision“ - is the result of biochemical operators that are interconnected in clear cause-and-effect chains. There is never a moment when the organism acts „outside“ physics.
At the level of action, this manifests itself as a network of deterministic strands.
Stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline increase heart rate, muscle tone and reaction speed: they prepare the body to either attack or flee. This path is not a suggestion, but a concrete causal chain that pushes the organism in the direction of fight or flight behavior.
Bonding hormones such as oxytocin, on the other hand, activate systems that promote closeness, trust and cooperation: Seeking closeness, sharing risk, protection in groups. This is also a deterministic strand that does not „inspire“ actions, but rather biases them.
Finally, dopaminergic pathways link expectation, reward and learning. They evaluate options for action according to previous success and adapt future decisions in a strictly functional way. What works „right“ is reinforced; what „fails“ is weakened - again purely causal.
Biological decisions are therefore never free. They are always the summation of competing deterministic signals acting simultaneously on the same organism. This is precisely where the raw material for consciousness arises: If several of these strands are simultaneously active, functionally plausible, but not simultaneously executable, conflict arises in the system. And without this inner conflict, there would be nothing that we could subjectively experience as „weighing up“ or „deciding“.
The so-called Hard Problem of Consciousness only arises if subjective experience is seen as an independent additional category above the functional processes of the system. In the ontology developed here, such a separation does not exist. Subjective consciousness is not something that runs alongside prioritization - it is prioritization itself. The weighting of competing causal paths, their temporal storage and the continuous reactivation of these weightings generate precisely what is traditionally referred to as qualia.
Experience is thus not a metaphysical residual, but the internal perspective of a deterministic system on its own prioritization process. The Hard Problem is thus not solved by interpretation, but because it does not even arise in a strictly causal model: The question ‚why is there experience?‘ is a category mistake based on the false assumption of two separate levels. In a closed deterministic system, process and experience coincide ontologically.
The 70/30 corridor: freedom as a calibration range
The so-called 70/30 rule does not describe a magical range of free will, but rather a dynamic stability corridor. Within this corridor, a system can choose between several determined paths without immediately losing its structural integrity. It is not a question of „can do everything“, but of „can prioritize between several causally valid options“.
Let's take a threatening situation:
The stress axis activates attack and flight as two deterministically valid reaction patterns. Both paths are functionally meaningful, both can end in safety or in entropy - injury, death, collapse. The organism is therefore not faced with a free choice between order and chaos, but with several entropically open but structurally legitimized paths.
The 70/30 corridor ensures that the system can evaluate within a certain range: Contextual information, learning experiences, social ties, current energy reserves. Within this framework, it can favor one path without destroying its overall stability.
The feeling of „I decide“ is nothing other than the inner perspective on this prioritization process:
The feeling of a “decision" arises when a system resolves deterministic conflict within a permitted stability corridor.
Freedom is thus not a metaphysical exit from causality, but the subjectively experienced surface of a calibration mechanism that mediates between several hard determinisms.
Subjective perception as a delay: Why consciousness feels like freedom
The seemingly „magical“ core of consciousness arises precisely where the system cannot decide immediately. Several deterministic strands are active at the same time, functionally equivalent and in principle executable - but they are not compatible at the same time. Attack and retreat, honesty and lies, closeness and distance: in all these situations, several biochemically supported action paths are activated in parallel.
Instead of firing immediately, the system enters a kind of delay loop. Sensory inputs, memories, expectation models and social contexts are offset against each other. This delay is not a bug, but the necessary computing time to prioritize a path in a highly complex network that appears stable enough in the 70/30 corridor.
It is precisely this delay that creates what we experience subjectively:
- Self-confidence, because the system registers itself as a point of conflict between options.
- Experience of time, because the decision is not instantaneous, but can be experienced as a span.
- Meta-perception, because the system models its own evaluation processes.
- Inner conflicts, because several strong strands compete for priority at the same time.
- Reflection, because past decisions are incorporated into future valuations.
Plants and simple animals have either no or only a very slight manifestation of this delay mechanism. Their triad structure is much simpler, the number of sub-triads is small and competition between pathways is weak. Stimulus-response chains dominate; complex evaluation loops are not necessary and energetically unfavorable. Without sufficient internal competition, there is no significant need for prioritization - and therefore hardly any subjectivity experienced.
Humans, on the other hand, are at the peak of conflict density: the noosphere bundles a maximum number of sub-triads - physical, emotional, social, cognitive, symbolic. Our organism must constantly balance divergent signals. The result is a particularly pronounced consciousness: We experience ourselves as „I“ because our system can almost never work in a pure reflex mode, but must constantly negotiate priorities.
Entropy paths: There is no free will, only diverging end points
Every decision that an organism makes is entropic, i.e. it moves the system towards a future state that can be energetically costly, risky or final. There is no „clean“ alternative without entropy - only different entropy paths.
In the threat example, this means:
- Attack can result in injury or death.
- Escape can end in exhaustion, constriction or even death.
Both options make deterministic sense - they follow from biochemical strands that have emerged from experience, genetics and context. The system does not weigh up between „order“ and „chaos“, but between several entropically open but structurally legitimate paths.
Consciousness exists precisely where such paths collide. It is the state of a system that senses - in the form of inner tension - that several of its future configurations are simultaneously realistic but not simultaneously realizable.
The quintessence can thus be summarized in terms of functional logic:
Consciousness is the space between deterministic drive and deterministic result.
It is the area in which deterministic drives have not yet been transformed into concrete action, but are calibrated against each other. What we perceive as free will is the subjective surface of this calibration process - not the exit from causality, but its finest, most sensitive zone.
Why consciousness is completely deterministic (and falsifiable)
If consciousness is not a metaphysical special case, but the product of competing causal chains, then this model must be testable. This is precisely the point: the thesis that consciousness functions deterministically is not only formulated philosophically - it can be attacked empirically.
Decision conflict is measurable at the level of brain physiology: In fMRI studies, activity in certain decision-making areas (prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex) increases as soon as there are several options for action at the same time. The stronger the inner conflict, the more pronounced the activation. This corresponds exactly to the assumption that consciousness „flares up“ where competing deterministic strands struggle for priority.
Neurochemistry provides a second level of testability: if biochemical parameters are altered in a targeted manner - for example via medication, hormones or stimulation - decisions change in a predictable way. Anti-anxiety substances reduce avoidance behavior, dopaminergic interventions increase the willingness to take risks, serotonin modulation influences impulse control. If consciousness were free, it should be able to resist these interventions. In fact, it follows them.
There are also priming experiments: People can be systematically pushed in certain decision-making directions by previous stimuli without being aware of the influence. Action sequences become predictable long before the person concerned subjectively „decides“ to do something. The seemingly spontaneous decision proves to be the result of previous, measurable causal chains.
From a functional logic perspective, the model is therefore clearly falsifiable:
- If consciousness could occur independently of deterministic conflicts, it would be refuted.
- If decisions existed that could not be traced back to any biochemical or structural pathway, it would be refuted.
- If subjective experience were to occur without any delay - i.e. without an evaluation span - it would be refuted.
However, as long as every observable decision can be traced back to comprehensible causal structures, the deterministic theory of consciousness remains not only plausible, but also the most stable explanation.
VIII. Consciousness redefined: The final causal version
On the basis of this structure, consciousness can be defined precisely and without recourse to metaphysics:
Consciousness is the emergent delay that arises when several simultaneously valid deterministic pathways are active in a highly complex biological system. Subjectivity is the internal perspective of a structure that must prioritize contradictory causal chains within a corridor of stability.
This means that consciousness is no longer a black box, but a clearly defined functional state: it arises when a system has several equivalent but incompatible causal chains active at the same time and is forced to sort them within a stability corridor. Subjectivity is nothing other than the view „from the inside“ of this sorting process.
No metaphysics.
No real choice between causality and non-causality.
No coincidence as the last resort.
Only deterministic complexity that has to prioritize itself - and in doing so creates an inner view that we call „I“.
Conclusion: Consciousness is not beyond science - it is science
In this perspective, consciousness loses its aura of being untouchable - but not its significance. It reveals itself for what it is in terms of functional logic:
- a deterministic product highly complex, nested triad structures,
- Subjectivity as the perspective of a system in internal conflict,
- Decision as prioritization of competing paths,
- Freedom as an illusion of a delaying process that is necessary to maintain stability.
The consequences extend far beyond philosophy. For AI research, this model means that a truly conscious machine would not have to be „somehow intelligent“, but rather have competing deterministic structures that are prioritized within a stability corridor. For psychology and neuroscience, it offers a clear framework theory for understanding behavior, disorders and therapy as interventions in causal structures. For moral theory and social models, it revisits the question of what responsibility, guilt and choice mean when everything is deterministic - but not trivial.
In the end, the core can be summarized in one sentence:
Consciousness is not the rejection of causality - it is its highest expression.
Consciousness is not the place where determinism ends.
It is the point at which he recognizes himself.
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Note: Definitions and terms according to the Strüver model (functional logic).
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