Constraint-Based Physicalism

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Original abstract

DISCLOSURE:This paper presents the author's own original philosophical framework, refined through hudreds of iterative exchanges and adversarial critiques, with the author directing each stage of revision. The final text was generated with the assistance of Large Language Models, under the author's direct supervision. Every substantive idea, argument, and synthesis is the author's alone.Constraint-Based Physicalism Temporal Parallax as the Classical Process Phase Necessitated by Entropy Gradients:Why the Zombie Is an Incoherent Specification Abstract The hard problem of consciousness gains its force from an implicit assumption: that physical facts are exhausted by static, structural descriptions. This paper challenges that assumption. We begin with a classical observation—Zeno’s arrow paradox—to establish that some physical facts are irreducibly processual: motion is not a sequence of positions but a traversal that static snapshots fail to capture. We argue that the philosophical zombie makes an analogous omission. It is specified as a complete physical duplicate minus experience, but if the physical facts include dynamically maintained processes—not merely instantaneous configurations—then the specification is incoherent, because it demands the outputs of those processes while subtracting the processes themselves. To substantiate this claim, we develop Constraint-Based Physicalism (CBP). Evolution in environments with rough entropy gradients (power-law spectra with α < 2) creates a metabolic constraint: discrete snapshot-based architectures require substantially more energy to track these signals than continuous, phase-locked architectures. At biologically relevant fidelities and for the roughest natural signals (α < 1.3), this penalty becomes prohibitive, forcing viable systems into a specific dynamical phase—a constraint-maintained temporal parallax—that actively bridges the delay between environmental flow and internal representation. CBP proposes that this phase is identical to subjectivity. The phase is characterized by coherence persistence (Stake), perturbation sensitivity near critical thresholds (Strain), and the possibility of bifurcation collapse into unconsciousness (Collapse). A complete physical duplicate must replicate these processes; a zombie, by omitting them, is not a physical duplicate at all. Simulation of classical stochastic oscillator networks confirms that only this parallax regime sustains viability in rough niches. The framework yields falsifiable predictions for neurophysiology and AI architecture. The inference to panpsychism dissolves as a corollary: consciousness is a specific, metabolically expensive mode of organization, not a fundamental property of matter. -------------------------- The Python code for the simulation is available in the Software section.

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