Let us begin with the heresy: consciousness is not a thing. It is not a light bulb switched on in the mind. It is not a theatre with a little homunculus watching the play unfold. It is not a ghost in the machine, nor even a particularly welcome tenant. Consciousness is a conjuring trick – one so convincing that even the conjurer forgets it is an act.
If that unsettles you, good. Welcome to the simulacrum.
The Wetness of Mind
We often hear that consciousness is “emergent,” but the term is used so promiscuously that it risks becoming decorative. So let us be specific. Consciousness, if it is emergent, is emergent as wetness is from H2O: not in the hydrogen or the oxygen, but in their relationship when bonded just so. Joscha Bach and others argue that consciousness arises not from the bits, but from the dance – the recursive feedback loops and predictive models running atop the neural substrate.
In this view, the self is not the pilot but the dashboard. It is the user interface the brain conjures to coordinate action, interpret input, and maintain internal coherence. Not because it’s real, but because it’s useful. You are a GUI with delusions of grandeur.
The Cast of Theorists
Let us now parade the usual suspects:
- Joscha Bach: Consciousness is a virtual self-model, emergent from recursive, computational feedback. Not the product of neurons firing per se, but of their ability to simulate a stable identity across time.
- Thomas Metzinger: There is no self. Only a Phenomenal Self-Model (PSM) which becomes phenomenally transparent when the system no longer recognises it as a model. Consciousness is the experience of this hallucinated self.
- Daniel Dennett: Dismantles the notion of a “central experiencer” with his Multiple Drafts Model. Consciousness is a narrative, a distributed process where drafts of experience compete, are edited, and retroactively interpreted.
- David Chalmers: Waves his flag at the Hard Problem of consciousness. You can explain behaviour, memory, attention—but not experience itself. He flirts with dualism and panpsychism while insisting there’s a gap science cannot yet close.
- Giulio Tononi: Gives us Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and the elusive metric Φ (phi). Consciousness is the degree to which information is unified within a system. Your brain is conscious because its parts can’t be reduced without losing coherence.
- Karl Friston: The prophet of Free Energy Minimisation. Consciousness is an emergent property of systems that seek to reduce prediction error. The brain is a Bayesian engine, and the self is its best guess about how to survive.
So What Is Consciousness?
A hallucination. A recursive illusion. A predictive dashboard. A statistical artefact. A phi score. A phenomenally transparent model. Take your pick.
None of these theories fully agree, but most converge on one elegant horror: you are not what you think you are. The sense of being a continuous, stable, indivisible “I” is a construction. A simulation. The dream from which there is no waking because waking is part of the dream.
This is not despair; it is clarity. Just as wetness does not cry when told it is not a substance, the self need not mourn its own illusion. It is a marvellous fiction, worth inhabiting.
Conclusion: Through the Mirror
To be conscious of consciousness is to stand in the hall of mirrors and realise none reflect the original—because there is no original. The mirror is the thing.
But if the theatre is empty, the play goes on. Scripts are written, models simulated, selves performed. And perhaps, in this strange recursion, we find not meaning, but the possibility of coherence.
So raise a glass to the illusion. May your predictive model stay optimised, your narrative stay plausible, and your hallucinated self remain just this side of transparent.
For further hallucinatory episodes, consult your local philosopher, neuroscientist, or AI researcher. Side effects may include derealisation, epistemic vertigo, and mild enlightenment.
Philosophics 