**[[169_O3_Consciousness-Primitive|O3]] (Consciousness Primitive):** Consciousness is an ontological primitive—the irreducible capacity for experience, awareness, and distinction-making. Consciousness is not emergent from non-conscious matter but is co-fundamental with information ([[167_O1_Information-Primitive|O1]]) and coherence ([[168_O2_Coherence-Primitive|O2]]).
Evolution explains how conscious organisms came to exist, not how consciousness itself arises from non-consciousness. Evolution can increase, refine, and complexify consciousness, but it cannot create it from nothing. If consciousness is primitive, evolution works on a substrate that already has proto-conscious or conscious elements. Panpsychism and cosmopsychism are compatible with evolution. [[161_P0_Origin-Stage|P0]] through [[169_O3_Consciousness-Primitive|O3]] form a chain: consciousness exists because existence ([[161_P0_Origin-Stage|P0]]) requires distinction ([[162_P1_Consciousness-Stage|P1]]) requires observation. Evolution elaborates; it does not originate.
Brain damage shows that in humans, brain is necessary for human consciousness. It does not show brain is sufficient or that consciousness is identical to brain activity. A radio receiver is necessary for receiving radio signals, but damaging the radio doesn't show the radio produces the signal. The brain may be the receiver/filter of consciousness, not its generator. Primitiveness is compatible with physical correlation.
[[169_O3_Consciousness-Primitive|O3]] does not entail that rocks have rich experience. It entails that the capacity for experience is fundamental. Different systems instantiate this capacity to different degrees. [[038_D5.2_Integrated-Information-Phi|Integrated Information]] Theory (IIT) provides a measure: \Phi > 0 for systems with integrated information processing. Rocks have negligible \Phi. Brains have high \Phi. The primitive is the capacity; the manifestation varies. The Logos ([[011_D2.2_Chi-Field-Properties|chi-field]]) is the primordial consciousness from which all finite consciousnesses derive.
Primitives are not failures of explanation; they are termination points of explanatory chains. Physics has primitives (charge, mass, etc.) that are not explained in terms of anything else. Declaring consciousness primitive is claiming it plays the same foundational role as physical primitives. The question "why is there consciousness?" is as deep as "why is there charge?"—both terminate in primitive facts. [[169_O3_Consciousness-Primitive|O3]] is not mysterianism; it's placing consciousness in proper ontological category.
IIT is one formalization of consciousness as primitive; [[169_O3_Consciousness-Primitive|O3]] doesn't depend on IIT specifically. [[169_O3_Consciousness-Primitive|O3]] claims consciousness is primitive—IIT is a particular theory implementing this claim. The claim can be defended via multiple routes: phenomenological self-evidence, the failure of reductionism, the role of observers in quantum mechanics, the explanatory gap. Even if IIT is unverifiable, the argument for primitiveness stands independently.
The Observer in QM:
What causes collapse? Copenhagen: observation. Von Neumann-Wigner: consciousness. Even decoherence approaches require "observation" by environment. The observer is irreducible.
Wigner's Friend:
When Wigner's friend measures a system, what is the state from Wigner's perspective? If consciousness is primitive, each observer has their own collapsed reality. QBism embraces this: quantum states are agent-relative.
Consciousness as Collapse Trigger:
If consciousness is primitive, it is the natural candidate for what causes collapse. Non-conscious systems remain in superposition; consciousness actualizes.
Category \mathbf{Obs}:
\mathcal{O}_iMonoidal Structure:
Composite observer. Entanglement between observers = shared experience.
Terminal Object:
The Logos \Lambda is terminal:
All observations are accessible to the ultimate observer.