The Integrative Field Model of Consciousness

Abstaract The scientific study of consciousness remains fragmented across neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and the physical sciences, with no unified framework capable of explaining how subjective experience, biological mechanisms, emotional regulation, social interaction, and large-scale organisation cohere into a single phenomenon. This paper proposes an integrative field model of consciousness, in which consciousness is understood as a process of large-scale functional integration binding neural, bodily, emotional, and relational processes into a coherent and temporally stable pattern constituting experience. Drawing on network neuroscience, affective science, social neuroscience, and complexity theory, the model argues that the clarity, continuity, and depth of conscious experience covary with measurable forms of integration, including large-scale network connectivity, physiological coherence, and interpersonal synchrony. Emotional regulation is identified as a central stabilising mechanism, while coordinated interaction between individuals produces extensions of integration beyond the individual system. The paper formulates explicit, testable predictions concerning neural integration, emotional regulation, interpersonal synchrony, altered states of consciousness, and systemic resilience, and concludes by outlining the ethical implications of a field-based conception of mind.