Computational Dynamic Monism: Process Metaphysics for the State Space Theory of Consciousness 

Abstract

Contemporary theories of consciousness often treat experience as a state, property, or representational structure instantiated at a time. This paper argues that this shared assumption underlies persistent explanatory problems, including the Hard Problem, the explanatory gap, and functionalist equivalence objections such as the unfolding argument. It proposes instead Computational Dynamic Monism (CDM), a process-metaphysical framework according to which phenomenal consciousness is constituted by temporally extended, hierarchically self-referential delay coordinate embedding (DCE) in plastic recurrent neural networks. The experiential and the dynamical are not two things requiring a bridge, but one thing accessed via different epistemic routes. CDM departs from standard type-B physicalism by reconceiving consciousness as a process rather than a property: a reconception that dissolves the Hard Problem by denying the separation between process and phenomenal character that the snapshot view presupposes. The paper defends CDM against the explanatory gap objection, the conceivability argument, and the knowledge argument; establishes through converging arguments that consciousness requires temporal extension; and shows how CDM survives the unfolding argument that threatens static structural theories. The threshold problem-which processes are conscious-is addressed through a self-reference criterion for subjectivity. Building on the State Space Theory of Consciousness, the account integrates insights from dynamical systems theory, neuroscience, and process philosophy. It distinguishes the metaphysical framework (CDM) from the specific mechanism (DCE), and yields principled constraints on artificial systems capable of conscious experience.

Keywords: consciousness, process ontology, Hard Problem, unfolding argument, delay coordinate embedding, self-reference