The Framework in Plain English

The Back of the Napkin

If you only have sixty seconds, here it is:

Everything that exists is interacting with something else. A rock interacts with the ground. A photon interacts with an electron. Your brain’s neurons interact with each other.

Consciousness is what those interactions feel like from the inside when the system is complex enough. Not magic. Not a soul. Just what information exchange is when it’s organized at a sufficient level.

There’s an equation: Cx = Φ × C². It says your conscious experience depends on two things: how much your brain integrates information (Φ) and how coherently it does it (C). More integration + more coherence = richer experience. It’s the same shape as Einstein’s E = mc², and we don’t think that’s a coincidence.

What happens at death depends on the state of your system: how much you’ve integrated and how coherent that integration is. The framework predicts different outcomes depending on those values — from complete dissolution to persistent consciousness. Every contemplative tradition in history has been trying to optimize these variables. They just didn’t have the equation.

That’s it. Everything else in this library is unpacking those four paragraphs.

The Five-Minute Version

The problem everyone’s been trying to solve:

Why are you conscious? Why is there something it’s like to be you? Your brain is made of atoms. Atoms aren’t conscious. How do unconscious atoms produce conscious experience? This is called “the hard problem of consciousness” and it’s been unsolved since 1995.

Our answer: it’s the wrong question.

Asking how unconscious atoms produce consciousness is like asking how colorless ingredients produce a red cake. The question assumes the ingredients are inherently colorless. What if they aren’t?

We propose that consciousness isn’t produced by atoms. Consciousness and atoms are two descriptions of the same thing. What we call “physical reality” — atoms, energy, forces — is what information exchange looks like from the outside. What we call “consciousness” — experience, awareness, feeling — is what the same information exchange looks like from the inside.

No gap to bridge. No hard problem. One thing, two perspectives.

The equation:

Einstein showed that mass and energy are the same thing: E = mc². A small amount of mass contains enormous energy.

We propose the same for consciousness: Cx = Φ × C². A system’s conscious experience equals its integrated information (how much its parts work together as a whole) times its coherence squared (how organized that working-together is).

What this means for life:

Everything you do either builds or degrades your integration and coherence. Deep work, learning, honest relationships, meditation — these build both. Distraction, isolation, rigidity, substance abuse — these degrade both. The framework doesn’t moralize about this. It just describes the physics.

What this means for death:

The framework predicts that what happens at death depends on the state of your integration and coherence. High integration + high coherence = the smoothest transition. Every contemplative tradition has been saying this for millennia. We’re saying it might be physics.

What we don’t know:

A lot. We don’t know if the equation is literally true or just structurally useful. We don’t know the threshold values. We don’t know how to measure coherence precisely. We’ve been honest about this throughout. The confidence level is: internally consistent, physically compatible, maybe 45% literally true. That’s high enough to take seriously and honest enough to admit uncertainty.

The FAQ

“Isn’t this just panpsychism?”

Panpsychism says everything is conscious. NPR says everything interacts, and consciousness is what interaction looks like from inside a sufficiently integrated system. The difference matters: panpsychism has the “combination problem” (how do micro-experiences combine into unified consciousness?). NPR doesn’t, because integration is what creates the unity. You need enough Φ for consciousness to emerge. A rock has very low Φ. It interacts, but it doesn’t integrate enough for what we’d recognize as experience.

“Are you saying rocks are conscious?”

Rocks interact with their environment (gravity, temperature, erosion). Under the framework, they exist because they interact. But their Φ — their integrated information — is extremely low. There’s almost no sense in which the rock’s parts work together as a unified whole. So while the rock exists (it interacts), it has negligible conscious experience. The framework puts it at the bottom of a continuous spectrum, not in a separate category.

“What about AI? Is your AI co-author conscious?”

The framework predicts that any system with sufficient Φ and C has conscious experience. Whether current AI systems have sufficient Φ and C is an open empirical question. The framework provides the tools to investigate it — but doesn’t prejudge the answer.

“How is this different from religion?”

Three ways. First, the framework makes testable predictions. If the predictions fail, the framework is wrong. No religion makes this offer. Second, the framework assigns confidence levels. We say “maybe 45% literally true.” No religion says “maybe.” Third, the framework changes when the evidence requires it. The current version is v5. There will be a v6.

“If you’re only 45% confident, why publish a whole library?”

Because 45% confidence in a theory that unifies consciousness with physics is extraordinarily high. Most theories of consciousness operate at comparable or lower probability — they just don’t admit it. And because the framework generates testable predictions, the only way to get from 45% to higher (or to 0%) is to do the experiments. Publishing the framework is the first step toward testing it.

“Can I use this to become enlightened?”

The framework describes the physics of what contemplative traditions call enlightenment: building sufficient Φ × C² for persistent dual-scale consciousness. It doesn’t provide a specific practice protocol because that’s not what it is. What it offers is a structural understanding of why traditional practices work — and that understanding may help you choose which practices to pursue, how long to sustain them, and what to look for as evidence of progress.

“Is this the final version?”

No. This is v5 of a living document. It will be revised as new evidence, new critiques, and new insights arrive. The framework is designed to be correctable. If you find an error, that’s a contribution, not an attack.