Start Here: The Theory of Now and Then

An introduction

The Theory of Now and Then (TNT) is a formal framework for consciousness that takes Awareness as ontologically primitive rather than derivative.

Existing frameworks—physicalism, functionalism, information-based theories, panpsychism, and idealism—fail structurally, not merely in detail. Each attempts to derive experience from categories constitutively incapable of yielding it, or posits experience without adequate constraint structure.

TNT begins with a different premise: Awareness is fundamental. It is not produced by brains, not emergent from complexity, not constructed from information. It is the irreducible ground within which everything else exists.

The framework is precisely specified: eleven axioms state what exists at the fundamental level, thirteen postulates define structural constraints, and fifteen derived principles articulate what necessarily follows. The whole is validated against nine pre-theoretic constraints—the Inevitabilities—that arise from the bare fact that experience exists.

The hard problem asks how physical processes produce subjective experience. TNT dissolves this problem rather than solving it. There is no gap to bridge because experience is not derived from non-experience.

AI assistants can be useful tools for exploring the framework—asking questions, testing implications, working through objections. But AI systems are prone to drift: importing concepts from other frameworks, hedging deductive conclusions, or mischaracterizing TNT entirely. The worst hallucinate with confidence.

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