For a Sociological theory of consciousness

Abstract The aim of this article is to show how a shift toward a conception of consciousness as an embodied and mediated relation makes it possible to reframe the problem of consciousness in terms of experience, action, and the production of meaning within social and socio-technical worlds. Starting from a simple heuristic scenario, a child playing with a ball, the article outlines the main trajectories that have emerged from critiques of cognitivism and representationalism (phenomenology, enactivism, Mind–Object Identity), and assesses their coherence and limits in light of the infospheric transformation described by Floridi, which relocates analytical focus from the subject to the socio-informational system. The purpose, however, is not to explain or compare these positions, but to bring SENSE (Social Emergent Network of Situated Experience) into view as a sociological theory of consciousness. SENSE does not conceive consciousness as an internal state, nor as a property of objects, nor as language or information that reorganizes itself, nor simply as relation per se. Consciousness is what a network of relations becomes when it is situated and crosses a certain threshold: an emergent function that integrates, stabilizes, and renders meaning accountable over time. From this perspective, consciousness is what makes experience shareable, action-orienting, and imputable within practices, institutions, and regimes of recognition. It is distinct from both agency and computational intelligence, and it enables empirical analysis of how meaning is produced, sustained, and enacted within contemporary socio-technical ecosystems. Keywords 1. Situated consciousness 2. Relational sense-making 3. Socio-technical agency 4. Artificial intelligence 5. Semiotic networks 6. Distributed cognition