Temporal Integration, Bidirectional Criticality and Emergence of Consciousness Hierarchy Condensed English Version V70

Consciousness arises as an engineering necessity: a self-referential closed loop is the optimal solution for a system that must persist under resource constraints. When temporal integration capacity crosses a critical threshold, the system inevitably attributes causal chains to a single persistent subject—the 'self.' Qualia are endogenous calibration signals of this loop, an optimal encoding format under evolutionary time pressure. The explanatory gap between first-person and third-person perspectives stems from time's irreversibility. A five-level consciousness spectrum and a resource-depletion explanatory spectrum for mental disorders are derived, along with four hard constraints for AGI.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This paper starts with a fundamental inquiry: why is there a "self" experiencing everything? Existing theories describe the correlates of consciousness but fail to answer why consciousness exists. Built on three axioms—limited resources, persistence goal, and discrete inputs—this paper demonstrates that the self-referential closed loop is the optimal engineering solution for maintaining persistence under resource constraints: once temporal integration capacity crosses a critical threshold, the system inevitably attributes causal chains to a single persistent subject, the "self". The model takes temporal span (T), reconstruction activity (A), and closed-loop integrity (C) as core quantitative variables, derives the two-step emergence geometry of "folding into a loop + anchoring into a plane", and reveals the incompletability of A and its layered structure. This paper defines qualia as endogenous calibration signals of the self-referential closed loop and argues that qualia are essentially the optimal encoding format under evolutionary time pressure, thereby reframing the hard problem of consciousness as a problem of parameter intervals. It further points out that the explanatory gap between the first-person and third-person perspectives originates from the irreversibility of time. Based on the bidirectional criticality effect, this paper establishes a five-level consciousness spectrum, constructs a resource-depletion explanatory spectrum for mental disorders, and derives four hard constraints for AGI. The fundamental divergence from the Free Energy Principle (FEP) is as follows: FEP converges toward prediction error minimization, while this model centers on the incompletability of the persistence goal—A is never exhausted, and non-utilitarian overflow is the ontological feature of consciousness. This condensed English version corresponds to the Chinese condensed Version 70 titled Temporal Integration, Bidirectional Criticality and Hierarchical Emergence of Consciousness, which was first released on June 18, 2026.