Rendering Consciousness: A Post-Bohmian Framework for the Ontological Structure of Reality

Reality may not be a pre-existing world of fixed objects but an informational field that becomes determinate through acts of attention and measurement. This article proposes a post-Bohmian ontology in which consciousness acts as a rendering engine, collapsing latent informational potentials into coherent perceptual experience. The model draws on quantum indeterminacy and observer-dependent collapse, predictive coding in neuroscience where perception arises from inferential updates, and the biological diversity of sensory Umwelten showing organisms access only narrow environmental information. Consciousness is conceptualized as a localized interface within a distributed informational field, with the brain translating non-local patterns into stable constructs. The framework accounts for altered states, psychopathology, and the relationship between first-person experience and third-person descriptions.

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Abstract

Classical physical ontology assumes a pre-existing, fully rendered world populated by discrete objects whose properties are fixed independently of observation. Yet, contemporary theories of consciousness, quantum physics, and predictive processing increasingly challenge this assumption, suggesting that perception is an active, constructive, and selective process. This article develops a post-Bohmian rendering ontology, proposing that reality is not a statically instantiated environment but a dynamically updated informational field that becomes determined through acts of attention and measurement. Building on David Bohm’s implicate order (while diverging from its assumption of a continuously enfolded substrate), this framework conceptualizes consciousness as a rendering engine that collapses latent informational potentials into coherent phenomenological form. Three lines of evidence motivate this model: (1) quantum indeterminacy and the observer-dependent collapse of physical states (2) the neurocomputational architecture of predictive coding, in which perception emerges from inferential updates rather than passive registration; and (3) biological diversity in sensory “Umwelten,” which demonstrates that organisms access only narrow, functionally constrained segments of environmental information. The proposed ontology unifies these strands by interpreting consciousness as a localized interface within a distributed informational field, wherein the brain operates as a translator of non-local patterns into stable perceptual constructs. Crucially, the collapse function is operationalized by aligning it with observable mechanisms of global neuronal ignition (GWT) and quantifiable by the Integrated Information Theory (Φ). The framework accounts for altered states of consciousness, decoherence-like failures in psychopathology, and the modular distribution of perceptual rendering across life. It further clarifies the relationship between first-person phenomenology and third-person physical descriptions. By articulating a mechanism that links informational potential, conscious access, and phenomenological instantiation, this post-Bohmian model offers a coherent alternative to substance-based metaphysics and contributes a unified conceptual structure for consciousness studies.