Structural Resonance Theory (SRT) Finger I — Structural Block Theory (SBT): Formal Units of Experience Under Resonant Integration

Finger I: Structural Block Theory Structural Block Theory (SBT) extends Structural Resonance Theory (SRT) by formalizing the granularity of conscious experience as a necessary consequence of finite integration under constraint. Rather than treating consciousness as continuous, atomic, representational, or computational, SBT defines experience as occurring in maximal contiguous intervals of threshold-satisfying resonance integration, termed experiential blocks. Blocks are not perceptual snapshots or symbolic units, but structurally delimited integration regimes whose existence, duration, and dominance are governed by integration density, constraint topology, and update nontriviality. The theory derives experiential discreteness without appealing to phenomenology or fixed sampling rates, showing that block formation follows inevitably from finite integration capacity, variable constraints, and the impossibility of perfectly coherent, update-invariant states. Attention is formalized as a weighting function over competing blocks rather than as a gate or generator of experience, resolving long-standing dissociations between attention and awareness. Memory is reframed as attractor-level bias that increases block re-instantiation probability rather than as stored content, while sleep and dreaming are modeled as constraint-relaxed regimes enabling block dissolution, recombination, and structural maintenance. Pathological states are analyzed as systematic distortions of block dynamics, including fragmentation, over-stabilization, boundary failure, and identity decoupling. By specifying explicit formal definitions, operational hooks, and falsifiable constraints, Structural Block Theory provides a disciplined, substrate-neutral account of experiential segmentation compatible with neuroscience and dynamical systems theory while avoiding panpsychism, representationalism, and reductive elimination.