Structure over Illusion: Challenging Metzinger’s Representationalism through a Constructive Physicalist Alternative Part IV: The Structural Resolution of the Hard Problem

While Thomas Metzinger's Self-Model Theory intended to dissolve the explanatory gap, this paper demonstrates that his reliance on an Epistemic Agent Model operates as a structurally redundant middleman due to what is identified as the Double-Jump problem. By requiring predictive neurodynamics to manufacture a virtual property to perform causal work the system has already completed, his framework inadvertently preserves the gap it sets out to dissolve. As a parsimonious alternative, the Cartesian Recursive Consciousness (CRC) framework introduces the Geometric Identity Thesis: the recursive causal geometry is strictly identical to the conscious subject. Grounding subjectivity in the non-decomposable topology of Recursive Informational Closure (RIC), CRC replaces transparent representations with the mathematically specified Perspectival Gap. Through Deflationary Structuralism, the paper reveals the Hard Problem as a conceptual misidentification. Because the system cannot step outside its own recursive loop to directly introspect its computational variables or its ongoing geometric integration, it operates under an Epistemic Blind Spot. This specific structural blindness necessitates Linguistic Compression, where the expression of that simultaneous geometric integration is compressed into static nouns traditionally classified as “qualia.” Furthermore, communicating this entire geometric reconciliation across the temporal, sequential pipeline of symbolic communication structurally necessitates serialization. This serialization generates the Transitive Illusion: the linguistic fragmentation of a unified causal process into an isolated subject, a relational verb, and a static qualitative noun. Mistaking this grammatical fragmentation for an ontological primitive has driven the philosophical search to prove a non-functional Residual Variable. Defending CRC's identity claim against Searle's Chinese Room and the simulation objection, the paper argues that within closed causal geometries, informational simulation is physical realization. Finally, CRC exposes how the conceivability of Chalmers' philosophical zombie depends on an unproven ontological residue, demonstrating that the scenario is structurally incoherent within the stipulated domain of the Geometric Identity Thesis. Ultimately, this gap is revealed not as a missing ontological piece, but as a conceptual mislabeling operating as an architectural consequence of the system’s Epistemic Blind Spot.