Minimum Viable Phenomenology | A Dynamical Threshold for Experience

This work introduces Minimum Viable Phenomenology(MVP) - the lowest possible threshold above which any system obtains lived experience regardless of what its substrate is. Rather than assuming any predefined state, cognition, or intelligence, MVP shows how purely dynamical complex system can generate phenomenology without semantics or reprsentations, using only gradients. The problem is framed within Phantastics - the study of dynamics that give rise to phenomenology, qualia, consciousness and mind inside complex systems, and is intended as a substrate-independent formal framework, prior to psychology, neurology and cognitive science.