The Convergence-Point Hypothesis as a Structural Framework for Consciousness Theories — A Proposal for Structurally Connecting Integrated Information Theory, Global Workspace Theory, Predictive Processing, the Free Energy Principle, Embodied Cognition, Higher-Order Theory, Recurrent Processing Theory, Neural Correlates of Consciousness, the Turing Test, and Libet-Style Experiments —

Summary

The manuscript proposes the convergence-point hypothesis as a structural framework to connect various consciousness theories within a broader causal structure. It suggests that existing mechanisms of consciousness, like information integration and prediction, should be viewed as interconnected processes forming a causal chain related to subjectivity. The hypothesis posits that conscious systems will have architectures that generate and narrow down multiple possibilities into one event, emphasizing the importance of causal organization over specific anatomical structures.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This manuscript was written with the assistance of generative AI. The author is a disability welfare worker and a complete outsider to the academic field of consciousness studies. The author first encountered the term “the hard problem of consciousness” about six months before writing this manuscript and began thinking about it almost as if approaching a puzzle. Because the author did not possess extensive specialized knowledge, the inquiry proceeded not by adding established theories, but by stripping the problem down as far as possible. Through this process, and through dialogue with AI, the convergence point derived from the ten structural conditions gradually emerged. The author had the impression that something like a structure had appeared from nature itself. This manuscript is an attempt to present that structure. The central idea, theoretical orientation, conceptual structure, and overall organization of the paper belong to the author. Generative AI was used extensively for English drafting, wording, organization, and stylistic refinement. The author intends to end this work with its presentation as a preprint. The author does not plan to develop this hypothesis further as a long-term academic project. Readers who find any part of this hypothesis, terminology, structure, or argument useful are free to use, modify, criticize, or develop it further. No permission from the author is required. Formal citation or attribution is appreciated but not required. Current consciousness research has developed several influential approaches, including Integrated Information Theory, Global Workspace Theory, Predictive Processing, the Free Energy Principle, Embodied Cognition, Higher-Order Theory, Recurrent Processing Theory, Neural Correlates of Consciousness research, behavioral tests such as the Turing Test, and Libet-style experiments. These theories and research programs have clarified important mechanisms related to consciousness, including information integration, availability, prediction, regulation, bodily constraint, representation, neural activity, reportable behavior, and action preparation. At the same time, there remains room for further clarification regarding how these mechanisms are connected into one body, one present, and one irreversible history. This paper presents the convergence-point hypothesis as a structural framework for connecting the mechanisms clarified by existing theories within a broader causal structure. The convergence-point hypothesis is an attempt to uncover, from conditions already present in nature, the causal structure that may form the structural skeleton of subjectivity. This hypothesis treats information integration, prediction, representation, correlation with neural activity, and behavioral output not as isolated processes, but as parts of one body-bound causal chain. The central question is where these processes close. The method of this paper is not to introduce a new special principle from outside, but to construct, from the basic conditions already identified across multiple fields, a causal chain that may form the structural skeleton of subjectivity with the minimum necessary assumptions. Through this structure, the convergence-point hypothesis aims to connect existing consciousness theories not as competing accounts, but as different partial mechanisms of subjectivity formation. This paper adopts a scientific method that distinguishes the qualitative character of qualia from the structural skeleton of subjectivity. This distinction is not a reduction of the qualia problem, but a way to formulate the question more precisely. The convergence-point hypothesis extracts, as the structural skeleton of subjectivity, the structure by which some content becomes an event belonging to one body, and thereby gives the qualia problem the question: in what structure can information become a subjective event? Clarifying this question is an important step for advancing consciousness research as a science. Finally, the hypothesis yields an empirical prediction. Conscious or potentially conscious nervous systems should possess convergence-forming architectures that generate multiple embodied possibilities, make them compete, and narrow them through selection and inhibition into one irreversible event. Across species, what should be conserved is not necessarily a specific brain region or anatomical form, but the causal organization by which multiple possibilities close into one body, one present, and one history. The convergence-point hypothesis is therefore a structural proposal for connecting major consciousness theories, using as its guide the structures of body, action, selection, irreversibility, and history formation already present in nature.

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