Consciousness as Emergent Architecture: A Functional Framework for a Tractable Science of Mind

This paper proposes a functional architecture theory of consciousness that dissolves the traditional ‘hard problem’ by reducing consciousness to a set of empirically tractable, measurable, and constructible subsystems. Building on Friston’s predictive processing framework, Dennett’s functionalist deflation of qualia, Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis, and Seth’s controlled hallucination model of perception, we identify a gap common to all four accounts: none mechanically specifies the transition from probabilistic prediction to subjective manifestation, nor provides a categorical criterion for when an architecture produces consciousness rather than sophisticated non-conscious processing. This paper proposes the Valuation-Weighted Predictive Loop and the Categorical Criterion as the mechanical bridge that closes this gap. Feeling is oper.