Differentiation and the Structure of Experience

This paper argues that the qualitative character of experience is identical to the structure of differentiation within unified, non-decomposable mediation. Systems whose persistence depends on resolving incompatible constraints require globally coordinated mediation, and such mediation presupposes internal differentiation. Where behaviour depends on irreducible global organisation, no decompositional description preserves behavioural adequacy. It is shown that mediation cannot occur without distinctions between states, actions, and constraint satisfactions, and that these distinctions form a structured organisation on which behaviour depends. Given that interiority is identical to unified mediation under a system-relative mode of description, it follows that what it is like for such systems corresponds to this structure of differentiation. The qualitative character of experience is not an additional property, but the organisation of these systems, as it must be preserved under adequate description.