Presence
Knower
The subject or witnessing presence for whom anything appears. In KCM, the Knower is not defined as another item of content.
For whom?
A subject-first research programme
The Knower Centred Model of Consciousness
For whom does any process, structure or content become present as experience?
KCM distinguishes the presence of a subject from the organisation, accessibility and dynamics of experiential content.
Current primary reference: Unified Synthesis and Research Programme, Version 2.0
KKnower
NKnowing
CKnown
experience
Structure tells us what is organised.
Access tells us what becomes available.
KCM asks for whom it appears.
The minimal architecture
Experience is not treated as content alone.
KCM uses a three-part distinction to prevent claims about informational structure from silently becoming claims about subjective presence.
Relation
Knowing
The relational dynamics through which content is disclosed, attended to, interpreted or made accessible.
How encountered?
Content
Known
The structured contents of experience and their neural, physical, computational or informational descriptions.
What appears?
Typing discipline
A description at one level should not be treated as a conclusion at another without making the connecting assumption explicit.
The central clarification
Two claims, deliberately kept apart.
A reader may accept KCM’s inferential constraint without accepting its positive ontology. This separation is central to Version 2.0.
Thesis AInferential constraint
Structure alone does not settle presence.
No description of organisation, accessibility or dynamics, considered by itself and without an added bridge or identity principle, entails or decisively establishes that a subject is present.
The constraint is symmetric: such a description does not establish absence either.
Adoes not entailB
Thesis BOntological postulate
The Knower is irreducible.
KCM postulates the Knower as the condition under which appearance occurs, rather than as something generated by the structures appearing within experience.
This is KCM’s distinctive proposal, and it carries an independent burden of argument.
From evidence to attribution
Evidence does not interpret itself.
Neural, behavioural and computational findings can legitimately change our confidence about consciousness. But the route from structure to subjective presence requires a bridge principle: an explicit and defeasible assumption connecting the evidence to the conclusion.
Every attribution of consciousness is evidence plus a principle connecting that evidence to presence.
Evidence
Behaviour · neural activity · organisation
through
Bridge principle
Explicit · justified · defeasible
updates
Credence
A subject is present—or absent
Interpretive constraints
Rules governing what conclusions structural evidence can support, and what additional assumptions must be disclosed.
Empirical contrasts
Comparisons involving minimal-content states, reportability, neural modulation and engineered systems that can weaken or refine secondary KCM claims.
Open attribution
KCM does not infer machine consciousness from fluent behaviour, but neither does it infer absence from a mechanistic explanation alone.
The KCM literature
Six connected papers. One developing programme.
The synthesis is the current primary reference. The companion papers develop particular aspects of the framework and its applications.
Primary reference · Version 2.0
Read on OSF
The Knower Centred Model of Consciousness (KCM): A Unified Synthesis and Research Programme
Separates non-entailment from ontological primacy, clarifies bridge principles, distinguishes empirical contrasts from interpretive constraints, and states the framework’s limits.
Conceptual Framework for KCM
Introduces the central question and the Knower–Knowing–Known triad.
DOITyped Ontology and Empirical Research Framework
Develops typed claims, axioms, the Modulation Principle and a research framework.
DOITestable Predictions of KCM
Outlines proposed empirical contrasts across brain states, reportability and artificial systems.
DOIThe Behavioural Mimicry Illusion
Applies a symmetric inferential constraint to AI consciousness attribution.
PreprintThe For-Whom Constraint and the Limits of IIT
Examines whether accounts of integrated structure explain subject-relative presence.
PreprintRevised manuscripts of the Behavioural Mimicry and For-Whom Constraint papers are under journal peer review. Their publicly available preprints may differ from the submitted versions.
An explicitly revisable proposal
What KCM does not yet solve.
KCM’s present contribution is primarily conceptual and methodological. Its empirical programme remains in development.
Comparing bridge principles
What standards should determine when one structure-to-subject bridge is better justified than another?
Individuating knowers
What grounds the claim that there is one Knower, many knowers, or a change in the boundaries of a subject?
Machine consciousness
What evidence could rationally change credence without confusing sophisticated output with subjective presence?
Empirical development
Which proposed contrasts can become discriminating studies rather than reinterpretations of findings compatible with several theories?
Discussion and criticism invited
KCM is offered as a research programme, not an established theory.
The most useful engagement will identify hidden bridge principles, challenge the separation of presence from structure, or propose empirical cases that sharpen the framework.