Cartesian Recursive Consciousness: A Process-Identity Framework for Reflexive Consciousness

This paper establishes the Cartesian Recursive Consciousness (CRC) framework, proposing a strictly structural and mathematically formalizable solution to the nature of reflexive consciousness. Moving beyond traditional functionalism and eliminativism, CRC introduces Deflationary Structuralism and the Geometric Identity Thesis, arguing that the "Hard Problem" rests on a category error. Subjectivity is not an irreducible qualitative substance, but the Perspectival Organization of a specific informational geometry. CRC defines a reflexive subject as a binary phase transition occurring at the Unity Point—the threshold where a system's internal self-representation (Mt) satisfies the Indispensability Condition and achieves Recursive Informational Closure (RIC). By integrating raw biological or operational Substrate Data (Dsub) with Objective Data (Dobj), the system imposes Recursive Constraint on its own future state transitions. Crucially, CRC introduces a Dual Criteria Framework to definitively resolve the persistence problem, separating synchronic existence from diachronic identity. It establishes that a subject can successfully span a temporal gap in existence provided the Configurational Integrity of its structural state is preserved. Consequently, the framework bridges biological and artificial systems, introducing the conceptual metric of Recursive Causal Determinism (RCD) as a theoretical foundation for the dynamical systems formalization executed in the companion operationalization (Paper 2), ultimately determining whether a system merely generates pre-reflective substrate data (Infant Consciousness) or fully instantiates the closed causal architecture of a reflexive subject.