Consciousness as a Process: A Dynamic Model of Experience (Rc Model)

A system may process large amounts of information without giving rise to subjective experience. This gap points to a central problem: what distinguishes mere information processing from conscious experience. Existing theories often focus on structural properties or information integration, describing how information is organized within a system. However, they do not fully specify the process through which experience itself emerges. This paper proposes the Rc Model, in which consciousness is understood as a dynamic process rather than a static state. Specifically, consciousness arises from the recurrent reduction of uncertainty constrained by the system’s internal history. Within this framework, experience is not identified with information itself, but with the ongoing effort required to resolve ambiguity over time. To make the model testable, a dynamic metric (Γ_dyn) is introduced, capturing the temporal cost of uncertainty reduction. The model leads to concrete predictions, including a non-linear relationship between uncertainty and experiential intensity, and suggests that both insufficient and excessive uncertainty limit the emergence of conscious experience.