MNO and Ontological Recurrence: A Non-Representational Account of Quantum Measurement and Conscious Experience

Abstract

This paper proposes a structural bridge between the quantum measurement problem and the hard problem of consciousness. It introduces MNO (Submergence–Indimergence–Emergence) as an operator-level description of how definite outcomes arise: openness of possibilities, tension toward form, and forced actualisation. The core claim is an identity-style constraint: collapse is not phenomenally relevant unless it is preceded by a recurrent return to the space of possibilities from which the outcome is selected. Externally, this recurrence appears as measurement/actualisation; internally, it is the lived aspect of the same return movement. We distinguish quantum superposition (a physical state in Hilbert space) from an ontological possibility space (the precondition of differentiability), and argue that conflating them obscures both observerhood and experience. The framework yields operational hypotheses (e.g., transitions across sleep, anesthesia, dissociation, and lucid/meditative clarity should track changes in recurrence dynamics, not only coherence), and clarifies the role of observers in thought experiments such as Schrödinger’s cat and Wigner’s friend. This paper functions as an interface text within a larger operator-based research corpus. Core concepts are applied here, not re-derived. The underlying research operates in a non-linear, rhythmically recursive epistemic mode grounded in an autistic form of structural perception; the present text provides an interface translation for academic contexts.

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The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory?Karl Friston - 2010 - Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11 (2):127–18.

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