Structure over Illusion: Challenging Metzinger’s Representationalism through a Constructive Physicalist Alternative Part I: The Structural Blindness Premise and the Parsimony Case against Representationalism

This paper examines the central premise of Thomas Metzinger's Phenomenal Self-Model (PSM) framework: the claim that the underlying system is structurally blind to its own self-modeling to conserve metabolic resources, secure a stable world model, and avoid the alleged trap of introspective paralysis. This premise is rejected on three grounds: it relies on contingent evolutionary observation rather than logical necessity; it stipulates architectural incapacity without empirical demonstration; and it lacks parsimony by generating a cascade of compensatory theoretical entities, each existing solely to perform work the premise prevents the system from performing directly. Rejecting this premise dissolves Metzinger's dilemma requiring the denial of our existence as a self. This paper also demonstrates that Metzinger’s attempt to unify his representationalist framework through Predictive Processing and Active Inference fails to close critical explanatory gaps. Employing the Cartesian Recursive Consciousness (CRC) framework, this paper contrasts Metzinger's structural blindness with CRC's Epistemic Blind Spot, demonstrating that a system can constitute a subject without invoking theoretical introspective paralysis. CRC’s dual-layer architecture provides the structural specification Metzinger’s framework lacks, with Metzinger’s transparency being a topological necessity rather than an evolutionary contingency. The CRC framework is then applied to resolve issues in Metzinger’s accounts of memory, mineness, and diachronic identity without resorting to representational constructs. As Part I of a four-part series, Part II reviews the structural gaps in Metzinger’s treatment of sleep consciousness, then proposes a resolution to the NREM mentation paradox; Part III addresses Metzinger’s account of Minimal Phenomenal Experience and the zero-person perspective; and Part IV addresses the Hard Problem through CRC's Geometric Identity Thesis.