Waterman, Alastair: Dark Consciousness, Idea-Agents, and the Emergence of Qualia

This essay proposes a three-layer architecture of mind in which phenomenal consciousness (qualia) is neither the foundation of mentality nor its inevitable accompaniment, but rather an emergent mechanism triggered by a specific computational condition: the irresolvable collision of multiple simultaneous contexts within a system operating under bounded resources. The intermediate layer — here called Dark Consciousness — is defined as a fully functional global workspace populated by recognized ide