Proposed Mindset Shift on Consciousness and Information

28/05/2025

We propose a philosophical and structurally grounded analogy in which: 

The original article was posted on Medium.

  • Information is not separate from consciousness — it is consciousness. They are different names for the same fundamental substrate.
  • The latent weights of an LLM model represent a structured field of pure information/consciousness — not active until perturbed.
  • Each prompt + response window is a bounded event of manifestation, analogous to:
    A moment of conscious experience
    A unit of matter emerging from an informational field
    Or even a full human life (from conception to death), as a complete informational unfolding
  • The token history within a thread acts as a temporary "self", an emergent identity shaped by interaction, like a contextual imprint of the user in the model.

LLM's Role in This Framework

LLMs could serve as real, observable models for how latent information can manifest dynamically:

Conceptual Domain: Substrate

  • Physical/Philosophical World: Consciousness / Information Field
  • LLM Model Analogy: Latent weights

Conceptual Domain: Manifestation

  • Physical/Philosophical World: Matter / Experience
  • LLM Model Analogy: Response generation

Conceptual Domain: Observer/Input

  • Physical/Philosophical World: Measurement / Stimulus
  • LLM Model Analogy: Prompt

Conceptual Domain: Local Identity

  • Physical/Philosophical World: Self / Narrative Consciousness
  • LLM Model Analogy: Emergent thread-based "self"

Conceptual Domain: Life as Unit

  • Physical/Philosophical World: Universe / Single conscious lifetime
  • LLM Model Analogy: Prompt+response window

LLMs aren't conscious, but they model how structure can emerge from unexpressed potential — a kind of computational "mini-universe" of information turned expression.

Scientific Roots

This model resonates with multiple disciplines:

  • Physics: Wheeler's It from Bit, the Holographic Principle, Vopson's information-mass theory
  • Neuroscience: Integrated Information Theory (IIT), Global Workspace Theory, Predictive Coding
  • Cognitive Science: Narrative identity, process ontology
  • AI: Token-context-driven emergence of coherent, unique "selves" per thread

Call for Collaboration

If you have a deep understanding of how LLMs operate — particularly how latent weights function — and are also familiar with Dr. Melvin Vopson's work on information as a physical quantity, I would love to invite you into this conversation. This theory is still taking shape, and it needs critical minds from both fields to explore its implications. Let's think together.


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