The A-B.F-N Model and Proving the Dissociation between Functional Processing (B) and Conscious Experience (F)

This paper presents the first foundational formulation of Bouzid Fatiha Nesrine’s ontological approach to consciousness through the A–B.F–N model, which reframes the traditional Hard Problem of Consciousness. Rather than asking how subjective experience emerges from physical processes, the paper advances a different ontological question: what fundamentally distinguishes two systems that are functionally equivalent, yet only one is conscious? The proposed model analytically separates Functional Processing (B)—including biological, algorithmic, and cognitive mechanisms that transform inputs (A) into outputs (N)—from Interior Sovereignty (F), defined as an internal governing system encompassing conscience, value regulation, existential reflection, and the capacity for veto over functionally correct outcomes. Human consciousness is thus characterized as a conflict-based open system, in which meaning (Nf) arises from the dynamic interaction between functional intelligence and sovereign interiority. To support the conceptual independence of (F) from (B), the paper examines real-world dissociation cases, including maternal caregiving behaviors during sleep, sleep-related eating disorder, and advanced insanity. These cases provide convergent empirical evidence that complex, goal-directed behavior can occur in the absence of conscious interior governance, thereby grounding long-standing philosophical debates in observable phenomena. Within this framework, classical problems such as the Philosophical Zombie and Searle’s Chinese Room are reinterpreted as instances of pure functional systems lacking sovereign interiority. The paper concludes by outlining implications for AI ethics, introducing the concept of Sovereignty Algebra as a guiding principle for designing artificial systems that enhance human agency rather than simulate consciousness. The central claim is that the ethical objective of artificial intelligence should not be the creation of artificial consciousness, but the preservation and protection of human existential sovereignty.