A Framework for Consciousness: Autopoiesis, Causal Poiesis, Causal Collapse

Where does consciousness come from? Despite numerous theories – from neuronal correlates to information processing to quantum physical hypotheses – this question remains unanswered if it is considered only within narrow disciplinary boundaries. This essay proposes an alternative approach: consciousness is not understood here as an emergent phenomenon or product of neuronal activity, but as the result of a multi-stage, systemic-thermodynamic process. The key concepts are: autopoiesis, causal poiesis and causal collapse. They mark three fundamental stages on which living systems emerge, center, and finally, under certain conditions, develop consciousness.

The aim of this essay is to systematically reconstruct this path from life to consciousness on the basis of the concepts mentioned above – not in the sense of a goal-oriented development, but as a consequence of certain structural and exchange relations in open systems.

This approach deliberately differs from established information-theoretical models such as Integrated Information Theory (IIT) or Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT). While these try to explain consciousness through functional information integration, the approach proposed here is based on structural-thermodynamic processes as they occur in the self-organization of living systems. Terms such as "causal core" or "causal collapse" are conceptual proposals that are based on concretely describable systemic properties – even if they have so far only been formalized and operationalized in initial theoretical work (cf. Stegemann, 2025a, 2025b). The present text is therefore not intended as a complete theory, but as a theoretical framework for the development of an interdisciplinary model of understanding.