A Spin-Off from The Structural Conditions of Consciousness — Structural Knot Theory AI-Assisted Probabilistic Experiment on the Structural Placement of Subjectivity — A Reproducible Prompt Provided for Testing Convergence-Point Fixation —

Under ten minimal structural requirements—autonomous action, single body, arrow of time, embodiment-constrained processing, multiple behavioral candidates, contrast formation, information discard, Landauer-type irreversibility, single history, and viability-constrained elimination—AI systems repeatedly derive a structure resembling a convergence point where multiple possibilities collapse into a single executable history. This suggests the structural core of consciousness may lie in convergence itself, not integration. Major theories like Global Workspace Theory, Integrated Information Theory, and Predictive Processing may thus describe preparatory stages before convergence rather than the locus of subjectivity. The paper deliberately suspends qualia and phenomenal experience to examine the structural container of subjectivity first.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This paper is an experimental spin-off from The Structural Conditions of Consciousness — Structural Knot Theory. It tests whether AI systems can derive the structural location of subjectivity from only ten reduced structural requirements extracted from the broader series: autonomous action, single body, arrow of time, embodiment-constrained processing, multiple behavioral candidates, contrast formation, information discard, Landauer-type irreversibility, single history, and viability-constrained elimination. The prompt intentionally excludes the words brain, neuron, neural network, nervous system, and consciousness mechanism. This exclusion is not a neglect of the brain, but a descent to a deeper structural layer. The ten terms are treated not as metaphysical concepts, but as engineering-level components required for an autonomous embodied system to select, eliminate, and stabilize one executable history from multiple possible trajectories. Under these minimal conditions, AI systems repeatedly tend to derive a structure resembling: “a convergence point at which multiple possibilities collapse into a single executable history.” This suggests that the structural core of consciousness may lie not in integration itself, but in convergence. If so, existing major theories — including Global Workspace Theory, Integrated Information Theory, Higher-Order Theories, Predictive Processing, and Neural Correlates of Consciousness research — may need to be repositioned as preparatory stages prior to convergence, rather than as the structural locus of subjectivity itself. This paper does not claim to explain or generate qualia or phenomenal experience. It follows the basic methodological policy of the broader series: qualia are deliberately suspended, while the structural container of subjectivity is examined first. Consciousness research has often treated subjectivity, qualia, experience, integration, and neural correlation as a single mixed problem. This series instead asks where subjectivity is structurally fixed before asking what qualia are. Once that locus is clarified, the question of qualia can be reformulated with far greater precision. Readers are encouraged to test the prompt directly and judge the structural pattern for themselves.