Not Less, But Other: A Foundational Error in Consciousness Science

First paper in the Consciousness series. Theories of consciousness sometimes identify a structural measure — integrated information, global broadcast, predictive modeling, or related structural organization — with consciousness itself. This essay argues that such identity claims are made under a distinctive epistemic condition: each observer has first-person access to only one case in which structural description and phenomenal experience are jointly available, their own. The resulting coincidence can place pressure on the move from structural correlation to general identity without, by itself, establishing that identity. Using the author's own previously published equation as its initial specimen, the essay examines where this move does and does not occur in major consciousness frameworks, with particular attention to Integrated Information Theory and more qualified treatments of predictive-processing and global-workspace approaches. The proposed correction is to treat the relevant structural topology as a necessary rather than sufficient condition for phenomenal expression, conditional on the paper's stated premises concerning materiality and information exchange. The structural description thereby remains available without issuing a verdict on whether, or what, experience accompanies it. The paper's principal proposed consequence is two-sided. When a structural measure calibrated from the human case is identified with experience, the same identity can support both over-attribution of experience to systems whose measurable structure satisfies the criterion and under-recognition of systems whose organization differs from the calibration case. The essay argues that withdrawing the identity removes both consequences together while leaving structural characterization intact.