Aydyn Thomas

The study of consciousness remains theoretically fragmented. Major models such as Integrated Information Theory, Global Neuronal Workspace, Higher-Order Thought, and Predictive Processing each capture essential aspects of awareness, such as integration, global access, reflexivity, and predictive control. However, they lack a shared structural framework explaining how these mechanisms interlock or why consciousness scales across biological systems. As a result, consciousness research has accumulated powerful local explanations without a unifying architecture. SCOPE (Spectrum of Consciousness via Organized Processing and Exchange) is proposed as a unifying meta-framework rather than a competing theory. Grounded in dual-aspect monism, SCOPE treats recursive information processing as possessing both a structural description and an intrinsic experiential aspect. SCOPE holds that certain forms of organized, recursive information processing instantiate both structural and experiential aspects, with the experience of an internal perspective determined by the organization of the processing itself. Consciousness is not modeled as something produced by computation, but as what certain forms of organized, self-referential information processing may correspond to when described from the internal perspective of the system performing them. SCOPE characterizes consciousness along three continuous, empirically approachable dimensions: Detection Breadth (DBI), quantifying the breadth and fidelity of representations; Integration Depth (IDI), measuring the recursive unification of representations across processing hierarchies; and Broadcast Reach (BRI), indexing the global accessibility and application of integrated states. Together, these define a quantitative geometry of awareness in which conscious degree may be approximated by Consciousness Σ = (DBI × IDI × BRI)¹ᐟ³. Systems exhibiting non-zero values across all three dimensions satisfy the minimal structural conditions for consciousness in the SCOPE sense, while partial combinations correspond to sub-threshold states. For example, dreaming exhibits high IDI and subtle BRI but downscaled DBI, resulting in internally coherent but externally disconnected experience. Applied comparatively, SCOPE maps consciousness as a continuous spectrum rather than a binary property. Minimal organisms exhibit narrow detection and shallow integration; distributed biological systems show slow, field-like integration; centralized nervous systems support coherent scene construction; and human cognition reaches high recursive depth through symbolic and metacognitive processing. Differences in phenomenological richness correspond to geometric expansion within Σ-space rather than categorical transitions. The framework generates falsifiable predictions. Conscious degree should covary with recursive integration and global accessibility across species and brain states. Anesthesia should selectively disrupt integration and broadcast while preserving detection. Altered states should correspond to predictable deformations of DBI-IDI-BRI relationships. These predictions are testable using established tools, including mutual-information measures, effective connectivity analyses, and network synchrony metrics. By situating existing theories as complementary projections of a shared structure formalizing integration, broadcast, recursion, and predictive dynamics, SCOPE reframes consciousness as an empirically tractable geometric spectrum. It offers a unified quantitative topology capable of organizing conscious phenomena across biological complexity without introducing new metaphysical entities.

My name is Aydyn Thomas; I was born and raised in Ohio and after going through psychosis in the summer after my freshmen year of high school. I had become deeply entranced by the mechanisms of my own mind warping and playing tricks on me out of my control. This had sent me down a rabbit of whole of developing a fervent obsession with psychology, pedagogy, sociology and especially, all corners of the studies of consciousness. I had begun to realize that psychology isn't just something I enjoy anymore, I wanted it to be my life's work. Even from a young age I had been obsessed with the existential unknown: the infinite cosmos, death, existence, religion, as well as other topics. Learning about things had been so exciting, but it wasn't until I had started getting into psychology, I was really passionate about understanding more. Which has led me to the current moment, a senior in high school, wishing to pursue a cognitive science degree; and hopefully become a professor or teacher. SCOPE is something that I have taken a lot of thought into, academically and recreationally; and the opportunity granted from The University of Arizona to present my ideas can, in all likelihood, be the start of my lifelong career in cognitive science.