An Experimental Approach to Recognition with Respect to Consciousness: Competing Hypotheses Derived from Exogenous Information
An Experimental Approach to Recognition with Respect to Consciousness: Competing Hypotheses Derived from Exogenous Information
By Charlie Hanabuchi (Sunday, January 25, 2026)
How can one derive, from exogenous information, competing hypotheses that may inform decision making aimed at recognizing and understanding what is relevant to one’s own life? This question lies at the core of any inquiry into recognition with respect to consciousness, since recognition is never a passive reception of information but always an active process shaped by interpretation, selection, and valuation. Before introducing an experimental approach to recognition and consciousness, it is therefore necessary to establish a modest and disciplined guideline for the cultivation of one’s own thinking. First, any existing systematized thought, philosophy, or religious doctrine should be regarded as nothing more than a potential mode of thinking, rather than as an absolute or final framework. Second, opinions, views, and arguments found in books or articulated by particular individuals should be treated strictly as references for one’s own reflection, not as authorities that compel assent. Third, one must remain rigorously empirical by relying on one’s own observations and confirmations when engaging with narratives or theoretical claims. Since the number of individually conducted observations is inevitably limited, and therefore insufficient to establish certainty, one must continuously bear in mind that one’s interpretations and the opinions derived from them may ultimately prove to be irrelevant. This attitude is especially crucial when addressing the persistent gap between what is individually or collectively recognized and what remains unrecognized.
What, then, is recognition? What is mind, and what is consciousness? The most critical element connecting recognition, mind, and consciousness is the relationship between wording and language understood as a system that assigns meanings within a given context. In the process of wording, meanings are not merely attached to words but are actively constituted through linguistic differentiation. This raises a fundamental question. Does the word come first, or does the world, realized through phenomena, precede the word? Wording operates by separating what is named from what is not named, thereby producing conceptual boundaries that are not inherent in phenomena themselves. To word something as A implicitly presupposes the existence of not A, since the concept assigned to A acquires its apparent robustness only through exclusion. As a result, the worded A appears stable and reliable as an abstract concept, while the world as it is realized through countless phenomena appears unstable and unreliable. This asymmetry ultimately generates a profound gap between the conceptual world maintained by language and the phenomenal world, which consists of ceaseless change arising from innumerable causal relations that may appear connected or disconnected to observers.
What occurs when the world expressed through word separated concepts is absolutized and taken to be the actual world itself? Such absolutization reflects an exaggerated confidence in linguistic capacity, conceptualization, and abstraction, as well as in the ability of reason to operate upon what has been abstracted. This capacity is undeniably essential for recognition and is commonly referred to as reason. Words play a central role in the operation of reason, since abstraction occurs when consciousness, which is always dynamically generated and transformed, employs language. Words are inevitably accompanied by concepts, and abstraction intensifies as concepts become increasingly detached from the experiential content they originally summarized. In the extreme case, a word is reduced to signifying a self subsisting being or substance that is presumed to exist independently. Such substantiation immediately entails the assumption that the substantiated being exists independently of consciousness or mind, particularly within a two element worldview commonly described as substance dualism.
This implication generates a serious contradiction. If abstraction initially takes place only through a consciousness induced psychological phenomenon, then to claim that the abstracted entity exists prior to or independent of consciousness is to assert that consciousness induced abstraction precedes consciousness itself. Such a claim is logically incoherent, since it reverses the very conditions under which abstraction becomes possible. The contradiction reveals a fundamental problem in any attempt to treat conceptual abstractions as ontologically primary.
The world exists as a dense network of relationships prior to its division into parts through linguistic practices. Absolutizing judgments or determinations expressed in words risks concealing these underlying relationships and obscuring actual circumstances. Recognition that relies on linguistic separation is therefore ill suited for an inquiry into consciousness. Recognition does not arise from a disembodied subject confronting an objective world, nor from a purely mental entity contacting an external object. Rather, recognition is established through the interaction of sense organs, which are material, with what is recognized, which is also material. Recognition, in other words, consists of material interacting with material. There is no direct contact between mind, understood as immaterial, and material itself, despite the prevalence of substance dualist assumptions. How one feels through the sense organs is directly bound to consciousness, and thus consciousness occupies a central role in recognition.
Consciousness itself encompasses both voluntary and involuntary processes. What emerges involuntarily within consciousness, independently of personal intention, may be regarded as the other than the one. Yet both the one and the other than the one coexist within consciousness and together constitute the self. Consciousness is therefore an inseparable mixture of voluntary and involuntary dimensions. Each is definable only through the presence of the other, and neither can be understood in isolation. Their mutual dependence demonstrates that none of the processes involved in recognition exist as independent substances. Instead, they arise through relationships that precede and condition their appearance at the moment of recognition.
The mutual dependence between the one and the other than the one is often ignored when humans employ language. This oversight becomes especially evident in discussions of absolute beings, which frequently culminate in substance dualism despite claims of monistic origins. Whether in monotheism, mysticism, or enlightenment oriented frameworks, a substantial being is typically posited, and a two element worldview follows inevitably. In monotheism, the transcendent deity is absolutely separate from the self. In mysticism, union with the transcendent is conceived as possible. In certain enlightenment narratives, mind and material are treated as two fundamental substances. In every case, the positing of a substantial being generates duality.
The emergence of substantial beings in recognition can be traced to the disparity between unstable phenomena and stable concepts. Perception through the senses is variable and relational, while the meanings assigned by language appear fixed and universal. This gap produces cognitive discomfort, which is mitigated by positing a substantial being underlying phenomena. Such a being is nothing more than a metaphysical projection of a concept that has been reified. Once such a being is posited, a two element worldview follows. Good and bad, creator and creation, mind and material, are all examples of this pattern.
Yet conceptual substantiation is merely a linguistic convenience. Parts cannot exist independently of wholes, nor can wholes exist independently of parts. A page cannot meaningfully exist without a book, and a book cannot exist without pages. Likewise, organs cannot exist independently of the body, nor can the body exist without organs. To substantiate one part as representative of the whole is conceptually incoherent. Substantiation therefore misrepresents relational reality.
The same logic applies to moral dichotomies such as good and bad. These categories are not transcendent entities but relational states dependent on perception. What is good for humans may be harmful to other forms of life, and vice versa. Given humanity’s capacity to cause extinction, it becomes clear that moral categories are not universal substances but contingent evaluations rooted in consciousness. Attempts to escape bad by separating from supposedly evil objects misunderstand the relational nature of perception. Good and bad are not substances to be approached or avoided, but states arising from sensory and emotional interaction.
Material mind dualism presents a related difficulty. If mind and material are independent substances, then their interaction becomes inexplicable. To claim that one is more fundamental than the other merely reproduces idealism or materialism, both of which posit a transcendent foundation. Descartes’ assertion of the thinking self as indubitable does not justify its substantiation. Recognition always involves perceived phenomena, even when those phenomena are illusory. Ignoring this relational structure encourages objectification and ethical detachment.
Modern science, grounded in such dualism, risks becoming dogmatic when substantiation is treated as absolute rather than provisional. Scientific descriptions summarize sensory regularities, but their interpretations remain probabilistic and context dependent. When substantiation is mistaken for certainty, science devolves into belief rather than inquiry.
An alternative approach is recognition without substantiation, or recognition grounded solely in consciousness. To be free of substantiation is to remain neutral regarding unverifiable absolutes. Consciousness only does not deny or affirm transcendent beings, but suspends judgment. Recognition then becomes an awareness of states arising from relationships, without attachment to fixed meanings or values.
In this framework, recognition occurs through sensory interaction and linguistic operation, both of which generate emotional responses. Strong emotional attachment, whether positive or negative, produces suffering and distortion. Consciousness only therefore emphasizes the release of deep attachment. Phenomena are understood as temporary states shaped by innumerable relationships, not as effects of singular causes or absolute origins.
Relationships may be direct, anticipatory, mental, or indirect. Together they determine the state of a phenomenon at the moment of recognition. A phenomenon is inseparable from the relationships that constitute it, and these relationships may be described as laws inherent in the phenomenon itself.
Finally, terms such as unconsciousness and subconsciousness should be treated with caution. They are not opposites of consciousness but modes within it. States in which recognition is not achieved are still products of conscious operation and may generate relationships that later contribute to recognition. Failure to recognize is therefore not absence but transformation. Consciousness operates continuously, cultivating relational conditions that shape future recognition and behavior.
A comprehensive discussion of these implications will be developed in subsequent work.