V01.03 — Mirror Theory III: Recursive Observerhood in Context
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) July 3, 2026 Lloyd Christopher Smith
Mirror Theory is presented as a framework that connects existing theories in cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and artificial intelligence by making observerhood an explicit explanatory target rather than an assumed starting point. It is compared with predictive processing, active inference, autopoiesis, enactivism, global workspace theory, integrated information theory, self-model theory, intentional systems theory, strange-loop accounts, and simulation arguments. The theory's distinctive contribution is recursive observerhood: a bounded, viability-constrained system that maintains a world-model, a self-model, and reliability-tracking over its own self-model, which matters for prediction, correction, and continued organization. This paper completes the initial Theory Arc of Mirror Programme, Volume I.