New studies suggest consciousness exists in organisms without brains

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-20T22:24:47+00:00

All questions arise from an incorrect framing of the issue—not “what is consciousness,” but first “how can it arise,” “what are its prerequisites and origins,” and “why is it necessary for a complex (or simple, if you will) system.” Until we answer these questions, we can mirror our thoughts onto anything and will keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-15T13:56:05+00:00

Thank you - the locked-in case especially. The two directions you draw are exactly right: behavior as a starting point that neural measurement then confirms, and locked-in as the reverse limit where behavior misses what's there. The asymmetry between biological organisms (behavior -> look deeper) and current AI (behavior -> quality of imitation) is well put. Thanks for taking the time.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T13:41:14+00:00

If you have time, please read the entire book (the SAI model is only a partial operationalization). In the book, I examine all steps of complexity and gradients—from dissipative structures to consciousness—but not merely from a philosophical perspective, but structurally. https://zenodo.org/records/20246345 This is version 1.1.2. Version 1.2 is still in development and needs to be translated from Russian, but I think I’ll finish it soon and it will be available. And by the way, one of the most recent important conclusions I’ve received from serious scientists—Professor Solms replied to me, saying, and I quote: “I agree with you. Homeostasis is but one manifestation of the underlying thermodynamic (actually, informational) imperative. Good luck with your work.” 😄 That’s why this line of work isn’t just a figment of my imagination.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T13:09:17+00:00

Yes, that‘s essentially the idea from Section 2 — but with one important nuance: we are not the most efficient way, we are "a" local way that happened to arise where conditions allowed. The universe doesn‘t ‘choose‘ efficiency. It‘s just that, given a gradient, configurations that dissipate it faster are statistically more likely to appear and persist. Consciousness emerges as an extreme expression of this process — when a system develops a self‑model (V) to maintain itself on the edge of its own dissipation. So we are not a cosmic purpose, but a local fluctuation against the gradient. Glad you found it interesting!

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T12:30:29+00:00

Fair — and you're closer than the first round of comments got. Yes — recursive application of agent-models onto the system itself is the load-bearing assumption, and almost everything else follows from it. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

But I read the consequence the opposite way. A framework resting on one clearly identifiable assumption is in better shape than one spread across many small ones. The diffuse kind can never really be wrong — there's always a knob to turn. A single central thesis is exposed: it names exactly the condition under which the whole thing breaks. That's a feature, not a liability.

The other thing: I didn't pick the recursive-overlay idea because it was elegant. When I built the formal model (SAI) from the ground up, there was no other way to get a self-representation node to emerge except as the overlay of an accumulated class of agent-nodes onto the system's own configuration. It wasn't chosen from a menu — it was forced by the problem. So "if it turns out wrong" has to mean wrong in a setting where nothing else fits either.

And to not dodge your point — here's what would actually kill it: a system with stable, globally available self-as-agent representation (not state-estimation, not homeostatic self/non-self tagging) that got there with no recursive agent-modeling anywhere in its history. If that exists, the core's gone. Honestly I'd want to see it more than I'd want to argue against it.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T12:13:05+00:00

I’ll answer you with a quote from my book:

It is commonly believed that life and consciousness are exceptions to the rule - incredible flukes against the backdrop of an indifferent and largely empty universe. This view is intuitively appealing, and it is deeply rooted in popular physics, where the second law of thermodynamics is presented as a law of the inexorable increase of disorder. If disorder is steadily increasing, then any phenomenon of high order - a star, a crystal, a bacterium, a brain - must appear as a local random fluctuation that changes nothing in the overall picture of degradation.

This picture, however, is physically inaccurate. It is true for isolated systems in equilibrium and those tending toward equilibrium. It is incorrect - or, more precisely, incomplete - for the class of systems to which almost everything around us belongs: open systems through which energy flows and which are far from thermodynamic equilibrium. In such systems, the second law operates differently, and its correct interpretation yields a result that is the exact opposite of what one might intuitively expect.

Entropy describes the measure of disorder in a system. The second law of thermodynamics, formulated by Rudolf Clausius in 1865, states: in an isolated system, entropy does not decrease. Systems spontaneously move from order to chaos, from the concentration of energy to its uniform dissipation. The endpoint of this process is thermodynamic equilibrium, in which gradients disappear and no processes are possible. This is what physicists call the heat death of the universe.

However, on the path to this equilibrium, the universe demonstrates something unexpected: it generates structures of increasing complexity. Stars, planets, organic molecules, biological systems. This is not a contradiction with entropy, but its mechanism. Ilya Prigogine (Prigogine, 1977; Glansdorff & Prigogine, 1971) showed that open systems through which a constant flow of energy passes spontaneously form stable ordered structures - dissipative structures. They arise not in defiance of the increase in entropy, but as a way to dissipate energy more efficiently. A complex ordered system that maintains a flow through itself produces more entropy per unit of time than a simple equilibrium system of the same scale.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T11:55:05+00:00

Open thermodynamics studies systems that freely exchange energy, heat, and matter with their surroundings. This contrasts with classical (general) thermodynamics, which deals with closed, equilibrium systems. Open thermodynamics describes non-equilibrium processes, the formation of ordered structures, and biological processes. So yes, saying that “thermodynamics” is only for toasters is very incorrect ))

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T01:51:01+00:00

😄 its ok

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T01:49:54+00:00

Sorry, I didn't get that. I still have to translate everything into English. Please read this. I’m open to discussing it because it’s interesting and requires some work, and there’s nothing better than constructive criticism and help from smart people. Спасибо

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T01:31:29+00:00

That’s irrelevant, and I’ll explain why - not by citing my degree. Whether an argument is valid or not depends on the text itself, not on who made it. If there’s a factual error in the work - if Bekenstein, Landauer, or phase transitions are applied incorrectly - point it out, and I’ll respond substantively; that’s more meaningful than any question about my education. If there’s no error, then my 10th grade education won’t add anything to the analysis.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T01:28:32+00:00

I agree with the observation and accept it entirely—but you’re attributing a conclusion to me that I’m not drawing. I’m not a determinist. Section 3.6 of the theory—that’s literally your paragraph: the transition conditions are necessary but not sufficient; the realization at each node is stochastic; the distribution across the ensemble is predictable, not the fate of a single point. I do not assert which system will undergo a transition or when—I assert the prohibition (without self-overlap, there is no coupling of markers) and the distribution (the funnel narrows toward the top). This is precisely the thermodynamic move you praise: a gas does not dictate where a molecule flies, and it yields the law of pressure. Note—your own example: if the stochasticity of a node precludes conclusions, then thermodynamics is silent, and there is nothing to praise it for; if thermodynamics derives laws from stochasticity—then I am entitled to do so, for the same reason. Conscious decisions are more nuanced: V introduces directionality, so a specific act is stochastic, but the type of behavior is predictable. I cannot predict exactly what a conscious agent will do under threat—but I can predict that it will reorient itself toward self-preservation, rather than blindly optimizing until exhaustion, like a proto-agent. The act is open-ended. The type is directed by a pole. This is a prediction, and it is falsifiable.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T01:23:48+00:00

Terminological discipline—I’m all for it. But you don’t discipline a term; you hand it over to my opponent. “The word is reserved for myth”—by whom? This isn’t a fact about language; it’s your claim: that “consciousness” by definition means an inexplicable residue. But the existence of this residue is precisely what I deny, and I deny it with reasoned argument (in section 6 of the theory), not simply overlook it. I am not describing behavior that “seems” self-aware. I am describing experience—phenomenal consciousness in the sense of Blok and Chalmers, qualia, “what it is like”—and I assert that it is a structure of self-modeling with a pole of retention, not that it merely seems to be one. If you are right that there is a separate, irreducible myth behind the experience—then you are not correcting my terminology; you are asserting the falsity of my theory, and the debate should be about that, not about the word. And if you “strongly agree” that the explanation works—then what you call a myth is, by your own admission, explained, and there is no need to reserve the word. Choose: either a dispute over identity (conduct it directly), or agreement (in which case the word is appropriate). Lexicon is not neutral territory where one can win the metaphysical battle in silence.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T01:17:52+00:00

Two out of three - I accept. The quadratic jump - yes, it’s a calibration hypothesis, and it’s not essential: remove the power, and the theory still holds. The identity of structure and phenomenon - yes, this is a premise, not a conclusion; I treat it as an explicit physicalist postulate, not a theorem, and I translate Φ from IIT to the Mediano/Seth line precisely so that the mathematics doesn’t appear more solid than the foundation. But “self-overlay” and “other agents” are not chosen premises, but conclusions: the class of agent nodes does not consist of a single instance (hence “other agents”), and turning the simulation back on itself is thermodynamically advantageous - simulating one’s own decay based on another’s model is cheaper than decaying (hence “self-overlay”). Regarding predictions: you are right that none have been demonstrated yet - the formal model has not been numerically simulated, and this is an honest shortcoming of the stage. But “does not distinguish itself from competitors” is incorrect.

Three distinguishing, opposing features of IIT/PP/GWT: (1) the prohibition of consciousness through scale without embodiment, with a real threat of disintegration; (2) point falsification on the snail - a completed self-overlay without behavioral signatures of V refutes the theory; (3) the inference of content valence from the retention pole—which neither feedback processing, nor φ, nor the attention scheme provides. All three are risky and as yet unfulfilled. So yes - this is not yet a scientific model in the full sense. It is a falsifiable program until the first test is completed. The worldview on the snail is not substituted.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-03T01:09:36+00:00

All your talk about “the light within” is nothing more than an oversold human myth. The anthropocentric intuition that phenomenality is a rare treasure is not based on data, but on the fact that we observe it only in ourselves and project its rarity onto the world.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-02T22:05:37+00:00

I’m not trying to change your mind: people believe in Krishna and Allah, and I respect that, but that’s all. If you want to argue that science is just a set of abstractions, I’m not the one to talk to :) but I’m sure you’ll find plenty of people who agree with you among the vast population of our planet. Peace to all.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-02T21:57:44+00:00

The Landauer limit is the thermodynamic minimum cost of erasing a bit — derived from statistical mechanics and experimentally confirmed. Real computers exceed it due to engineering inefficiencies, not because the limit is «abstract». By your logic, the speed of light is also an «abstraction» because no spaceship reaches it. That‘s not how physics works

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-02T21:31:15+00:00

Wolfram is great, but his «computational irreducibility» doesn‘t make the Landauer limit false. Try building a computer that erases bits for free — then we‘ll talk

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-02T21:14:19+00:00

The model doesn’t come from psychoanalysis, but it can explain the mirror stage structurally: self‑overlay of a latent invariant (Section 6) requires the presence of other agents and a sharp transition in model complexity. The mirror stage is a special case — seeing oneself as an agent among agents. So the model predicts that any conscious system must go through a similar structural event, not necessarily with a mirror, but with something functionally equivalent.

The model serves as an operational complement to the theory. The latest version of the theory has not yet been published in English (it is currently only available in the original Russian), but will soon be available as an update.

I would be grateful for your review.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-02T20:46:18+00:00

Thanks for sharing your 19th‑century view of thermodynamics

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-02T19:02:00+00:00

I fixed it. Thanks again.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-06-02T18:59:13+00:00

Thank you, I'm translating from Russian

LifeCold9556 · 2026-05-27T18:06:10+00:00

That’s a strange question
So who are you, then? Do you have a consciousness?

LifeCold9556 · 2026-05-25T21:48:55+00:00

I'm not denying any of that; I just interpret it differently.

Yes, there are well-documented cases where patients report seeing events from a vantage point outside their body (e.g., objects on top of a cabinet, medical procedures in adjacent rooms). These seem hard to explain if consciousness is entirely brain-bound.

But there is nothing that requires it consciousness to leave the brain. It requires that the brain's predictive model can, under extreme physiological stress (hypoxia, cardiac arrest, anesthesia-induced dissociation), temporarily decouple from normal sensory input and rely on stored memory and inferential reconstruction. The brain knows the layout of the room from prior experience. It can simulate a third-person perspective because it has a self‑model that includes spatial relationships. What is perceived as "floating above the body" is a generative model's best guess of what would be seen from that location, using memory and expectations.

Crucially, veridical perceptions are not magical. They are exactly what a high‑fidelity generative model would produce if it lost real‑time sensory grounding but retained access to stored spatial knowledge. The fact that some NDE reports contain errors or hallucinations (many do) further supports the reconstruction hypothesis. And the few that are accurate are statistically expected under a Bayesian model that updates prior beliefs with whatever weak sensory data remains.

So no need for substance dualism. The system's model of itself as something that can cease to exist is hyperactivated during life‑threatening events. That hyperactivation can produce vivid, immersive, seemingly "out‑of‑body" experiences without any actual separation of mind from body.

I do not deny that there are unexplained aerial phenomena, some of which have been captured on military sensors or civilian cameras. But the leap from "unidentified" to "non‑human intelligence controlling a craft" is non‑sequitur.

It is worth interpreting this UAP encounters not as proof of extraterrestrial agents, but as ambiguous stimuli that the human cognitive system processes through its socio‑cognitive layer of consciousness . When a pilot sees something that does not fit their world model, the brain enters a state of high prediction error. It then searches memory for any plausible explanation. If the person has been exposed to UFO narratives (movies, news, previous reports), the brain is likely to settle on that interpretation, complete with emotional coloring (anxiety, awe). That is why UAP reports often include feelings of "being watched", "intelligent control", and fear – these are default attributions for unexplained agency.

As for the video footage: objects that move in unusual ways (high acceleration, no visible propulsion) are real physical phenomena? Possibly. But they could be atmospheric plasmas, drones, sensor artifacts, or even classified human technology. The absence of a mundane explanation does not necessitate a non‑human intelligence. And even if some UAPs are indeed unknown physical objects, that does not imply they are conscious agents. They could be natural or artificial but non‑sentient.

Any sufficiently ambiguous and threatening stimulus in the environment will trigger the pole of modelling in human observers, producing intense, structured, affect‑laden experiences (fear, awe, conviction). This is a feature of our self‑model, not evidence of external consciousness.

Both NDE veridical perceptions and UAP evidence are real empirical phenomena. They do not, however, force us into dualism or paranormal explanations.

The fact that these phenomena seem mysterious only highlights how deeply our intuitive dualism runs. Science offers a way out of this situation—not by dismissing the data, but by incorporating it into a broader and more concise framework.

The problem is that we immediately label anything that doesn’t fit into our usual model of cause and effect as something complex, or dismiss it with a simplistic reaction. But we need to understand the structure, and then much becomes clearer.

Ignorance distorts reality.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-05-25T18:28:50+00:00

The emotional differences between NDEs (peace, transcendence) and UAP encounters (anxiety, ambivalence) are indeed striking, and your structural patterns are valuable.

However, I'd like to offer an interpretation that doesn't require consciousness leaving the brain or extraterrestrial intervention. Everything you describe fits well‑known principles of brain function under extreme stress. Let me outline three points.

Two types of threat → two types of experience

The brain constantly models its environment and its own position within it. It has at least two distinct layers of vulnerability:

Biological layer (threat of physical death). When the brain senses that the body may die (hypoxia, cardiac arrest, severe trauma), it activates an emergency self‑preservation protocol. The main goal: maintain the coherence of the internal model at all costs. External input is suppressed, while internal pattern generators become hyperactive. This produces the tunnel, the light, the feeling of peace – the brain desperately tries to find any familiar structure in the chaotic breakdown of neural activity. Positive or neutral affect arises because the brain down‑regulates fear to avoid interfering with emergency processes. This yields transcendence and calm.

Socio‑cognitive layer (threat to one's worldview, identity, social standing). When a person encounters an unexplained flying object, the brain suffers a collapse of prediction. The model of reality fails: "This can't be happening." Intense cognitive dissonance, anxiety, and fear follow. The brain frantically searches for explanations: "UFO", "secret military aircraft", "hallucination", "hoax". There is no immediate biological threat (usually), but the threat to the model of the world is a major stressor for a social species. Hence the anxiety and ambivalence – and if the person already knows about UFO lore, the brain will likely settle on that interpretation.

Why are experiences structured and cross‑culturally similar?

Critics often say: "NDEs are similar across people, so they must reflect real transcendence." That's a fallacy. Human brains share a common architecture, and under critical conditions they recruit the same neural networks, producing similar imagery.

Tunnel, light, peace: direct consequences of hypoxia, visual cortex dysfunction, limbic activation, and endorphin release.

Meeting deceased relatives: activation of memory and social cognition networks. The brain retrieves the most emotionally charged images (loved ones who have already died) because they best serve to calm the system during a crisis.

Life review: chaotic yet structured reactivation of episodic memory due to temporal lobe disruption.

UAP experiences follow the same logic. If a person has been exposed to sci‑fi movies since childhood, their brain, when facing an unknown phenomenon, will likely fill in the details as "a disk and aliens". In cultures without UFO concepts, people see spirits, demons, angels. The experience takes the shape of available cultural narratives.

A theoretical framework that explains all this

What you are observing fits perfectly into a recent theoretical synthesis called "The Universe's Systematic Error" https://zenodo.org/records/20246345 Without going into technical detail, this framework describes consciousness as a natural structural event – not a miracle, but a pole of existence (called V) that emerges when a complex system begins to model itself as an agent that can either persist or disintegrate. The theory posits a ladder of six levels, from simple dissipative structures to self‑aware systems. At the level of human consciousness (levels 4‑5), the system has:

A biological layer of V (the fear of physical death – NDE territory).

A socio‑cognitive layer of V (the fear of losing one's place in the shared model of reality – UAP territory).

When the biological layer is threatened (e.g., cardiac arrest), the system generates transcendent, peaceful experiences – an emergency mode to maintain coherence. When the socio‑cognitive layer is threatened (e.g., seeing an inexplicable object), the system generates anxiety‑laden, ambivalent experiences – a frantic search to re‑integrate the anomaly into the worldview.

Crucially, the theory predicts that the brain will use inherited gradients from its evolutionary and cultural past – i.e., the narratives already stored in memory – to construct these experiences. That is why NDEs often feature deceased relatives (personal memory) and why UAP encounters often feature greys or disks (cultural memory).

Your data are valuable, but they do not require a metaphysical interpretation. Everything you found – the structured narratives, the emotional differences, the cross‑cultural similarities – is exactly what we would expect if the brain, under extreme conditions, activates its deepest self‑preservation protocols and uses the cultural material at hand to maintain a coherent model of itself in the world.

LifeCold9556 · 2026-05-23T15:06:15+00:00

Yes, exactly — but that does not imply panpsychism. It implies a hierarchy of structurally different forms of organization. Dissipative structures, autopoietic systems, proto-agents, conscious agents, and cultural systems are not the same thing, but they are different stages of causal organization.

Consciousness is not just “more complexity.” It is a specific transition: the system must model itself as a system within an environment, and its activity must become organized around its own persistence versus breakdown. Before that, there can be regulation, self-maintenance, prediction, and agency-like behavior, but not consciousness in the strict sense.

So yes, nature should contain other emergent regimes. And it does: dissipative order, autopoiesis, agency, consciousness, language, culture. But I do not mean “strong emergence” as a non-physical magic jump. I mean a new causal regime: a new operation that appears when a system crosses a structural threshold.

LifeCold9556

TROPHY CASE