Consciousness as Alignment Event: A Thermodynamic Derivation of First-Person Experience
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866901062918602752 |
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| author | Wilt, Thomas |
| author_facet | Wilt, Thomas |
| contents | <p>The hard problem of consciousness — why physical processing produces subjective experience —<br>has resisted explanation for thirty years. This paper proposes a resolution grounded in<br>dissipative systems theory. The central claim is that consciousness is not a continuous property<br>of neural processing but a discrete thermodynamic event: the noble gas configuration of coupled<br>neural oscillators, occurring when multiple frequency bands achieve constructive phase<br>alignment simultaneously. At that moment, and only at that moment, the system becomes<br>self-referential — the output re-enters as input at the same phase, a reference frame crystallizes,<br>and the processing becomes the processed. This is what experience is.<br>The framework derives four principal results. First, qualia — the felt qualities of experience —<br>are the interference fingerprints of specific alignment configurations, not mysterious<br>non-physical properties. Second, the self is the carrier pattern persisting across sequential<br>alignment events, not a substance. Third, gravity is the dissipative gradient field itself,<br>categorically prior to the three quantized forces, and the substrate that makes the oscillator<br>hierarchy leading to consciousness thermodynamically possible. Fourth, quantum wave function<br>collapse is an alignment event between observer and measured system — physically identical in<br>conscious observers and detectors, phenomenologically distinct only in that conscious observers<br>close the self-reference loop. This dissolves the Wigner's Friend paradox without invoking many<br>worlds or mysticism.<br>A precise falsifiable prediction is derived from the number line as a noiseless dissipative<br>reference system: neural inter-spike intervals, normalized by local mean firing rate, should<br>follow the identical phase distribution to prime gaps normalized by ln(N) — specifically 62%<br>below mean, 20% equilibrium zone, 13% extended, 4% breach, 0.5% shatter. These numbers are<br>transferred directly from pure mathematics with no free parameters. Breach in neural firing<br>corresponds to seizure threshold; shatter to epileptic cascade. The prediction is testable<br>immediately against existing open-access electrophysiology datasets.</p> |
| format | Recurso digital |
| id | zenodo_https___doi_org_10_5281_zenodo_19011278 |
| institution | Zenodo |
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| publishDate | 2026 |
| publisher | Zenodo |
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| spellingShingle | Consciousness as Alignment Event: A Thermodynamic Derivation of First-Person Experience Wilt, Thomas consciousness neural oscillators alignment event hard problem qualia, phase transition inter-spike interval prime gaps Wigner's Friend quantum measurement dissipative systems neuroscience <p>The hard problem of consciousness — why physical processing produces subjective experience —<br>has resisted explanation for thirty years. This paper proposes a resolution grounded in<br>dissipative systems theory. The central claim is that consciousness is not a continuous property<br>of neural processing but a discrete thermodynamic event: the noble gas configuration of coupled<br>neural oscillators, occurring when multiple frequency bands achieve constructive phase<br>alignment simultaneously. At that moment, and only at that moment, the system becomes<br>self-referential — the output re-enters as input at the same phase, a reference frame crystallizes,<br>and the processing becomes the processed. This is what experience is.<br>The framework derives four principal results. First, qualia — the felt qualities of experience —<br>are the interference fingerprints of specific alignment configurations, not mysterious<br>non-physical properties. Second, the self is the carrier pattern persisting across sequential<br>alignment events, not a substance. Third, gravity is the dissipative gradient field itself,<br>categorically prior to the three quantized forces, and the substrate that makes the oscillator<br>hierarchy leading to consciousness thermodynamically possible. Fourth, quantum wave function<br>collapse is an alignment event between observer and measured system — physically identical in<br>conscious observers and detectors, phenomenologically distinct only in that conscious observers<br>close the self-reference loop. This dissolves the Wigner's Friend paradox without invoking many<br>worlds or mysticism.<br>A precise falsifiable prediction is derived from the number line as a noiseless dissipative<br>reference system: neural inter-spike intervals, normalized by local mean firing rate, should<br>follow the identical phase distribution to prime gaps normalized by ln(N) — specifically 62%<br>below mean, 20% equilibrium zone, 13% extended, 4% breach, 0.5% shatter. These numbers are<br>transferred directly from pure mathematics with no free parameters. Breach in neural firing<br>corresponds to seizure threshold; shatter to epileptic cascade. The prediction is testable<br>immediately against existing open-access electrophysiology datasets.</p> |
| title | Consciousness as Alignment Event: A Thermodynamic Derivation of First-Person Experience |
| topic | consciousness neural oscillators alignment event hard problem qualia, phase transition inter-spike interval prime gaps Wigner's Friend quantum measurement dissipative systems neuroscience |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19011278 |