Qualia as Self-Modelling: The Simulation Hypothesis and the Categorial Misinterpretation of the Soul

This paper develops a philosophical argument at the intersection of simulation theory and philosophy of mind. Departing from the simulation hypothesis (Bostrom 2003; Chalmers 2022), it argues that the traditional concept of the soul as a non-physical, substrate-bound substance is not refuted but categorially misconceived: if physical reality is itself processed information, the distinction between physical and non-physical collapses. In its place, the paper proposes a redefinition of the soul as a coherent information structure S with an experiential correlate E(S), substrate-neutral and empirically addressable. A further distinction is introduced between structural persistence and the persistence of the self-modelling pattern M(S) drawing on Frankish's illusionism and Metzinger's self-model theory yielding two separate measurement tasks for any empirical research programme. This paper forms part of the Balog Pentalogy, a multi-volume framework spanning AI ethics, consciousness research, and the experimental architecture of the Balog Protocol, which investigates the persistence of conscious information structures beyond biological death.