Consciousness and the experienced present: SMM/DTT and Integrated information theory

01The question behind the comparison

The experienced present is usually richer than an isolated instantaneous sensation. A spoken word, a rhythm or a movement is apprehended through relations among successive phases. SMM/DTT’s production/completion distinction offers a language for asking how an integrated event becomes available, but it does not make the experience of a present identical to a fundamental cosmic completion. A conscious observer is a complex physical and interpretive subsystem with its own memory, expectations and report capacities.

Three questions should be distinguished. Which neural or functional processes allow information to be integrated? Which processes make that information available for report and action? Why is the process accompanied by experience at all? A theory may make progress on one without settling the others. DTT can contribute a general account of record formation and nested dependencies. To become a theory of consciousness, it would need a specific bridge linking those structures to a subject’s experience. The number of inner levels alone does not select a duration of awareness or a neural mechanism.

A completed record can also exist without a person presently noticing it. A measuring instrument may register an event and store a stable result. Whether that is enough for consciousness is precisely the kind of question on which competing theories disagree. Keeping record formation distinct from conscious awareness avoids assuming the desired conclusion. It also lets SMM/DTT compare different observer models on a common basis: what information is retained, how it is integrated, when it is accessible, and what additional property is claimed to make the state experiential.

02The single-source and nested-time proposal

SMM begins with one nonspatial generative source. DTT distinguishes its inner production from the outer order in which completed results become accessible. The six inner levels are nested functional dependencies within that production; the seventh denotes outer completion. They are not six independent clocks, six spatial directions, or six simultaneously occupied temporal axes. This distinction makes the framework more specific than a general claim that everything changes: it asks how a world of persistent relations can be generated before its spatial representation is taken for granted. ^[2]

03The comparator’s explanatory structure

IIT proposes that experience corresponds to an intrinsic, irreducible cause-effect structure. Its formal analysis concerns a specified system, its state and counterfactual transitions under a chosen modelling scale. It should not be reduced to the claim that more stored bits mean more consciousness. Integration, information and the identification of a subject are separate requirements within the programme.

Consider two independent memory banks storing the same file. Their data agree, but agreement is not the same as an integrated causal organization. Connecting them through reciprocal operations changes the causal model even if the visible file remains the same. This distinction is useful for SMM/DTT: a common source or a completed archive need not constitute one conscious subject. A bridge to IIT would require a transition structure and an account of system boundaries, then a reason to accept IIT’s proposed identity with experience. The mathematical calculation and that identity claim should remain distinguishable. ^[1]

04The precise agreement and difference

IIT connects the unity of an experience with an intrinsic cause-effect structure at a specified scale. DTT connects outer availability with completion of nested production. The two concepts of completion can be compared, but they are not identical. A fully written record may be causally unintegrated, and an integrated system may not be externally reporting every aspect of its state.

The temporal issue is especially important. IIT’s modelling grain and DTT’s completion interval would need independent definitions before their durations could be equated. Choosing both to fit a familiar perceptual window would not derive their agreement. A meaningful source model would specify transition probabilities, system boundaries and the operation that makes a record accessible, then ask how the proposed experiential unity relates to them. The 2025 adversarial comparison of IIT and global workspace theories illustrates why such commitments matter: concrete spatial and temporal predictions can be tested even while broad philosophical questions remain. DTT’s strongest contribution would be a new, explicit relation among generation, integration and report, rather than an additional general label for the present. ^{[1] [3]}

05Worked example: what follows and what does not

Hear the three notes C, E and G in sequence. At the third note, the first two are no longer physically arriving in the same way, yet their temporal relation contributes to hearing an arpeggio. If only the current acoustic sample existed for the listener with no retention, the musical relation would be lost. If the notes were all treated as simultaneous, their order would disappear. The experienced present therefore includes a differentiated relation to what has just occurred. This example motivates a memory-sensitive model of temporal experience, while leaving open whether the relevant unity is explained by neural integration, phenomenological structure or a deeper metaphysical account.

06What this comparison contributes

The strongest DTT contribution is an explicit account of how a record-bearing observer is itself generated and maintained. That can clarify why different accessible timescales coexist in one world. Claims about phenomenal consciousness should then specify what the source architecture explains beyond generic memory or information processing. This comparison respects the reality of experience while making the proposed explanation assessable, and it avoids turning every act of registration into an unexplained cosmic awareness.

THE SAME QUESTION, DIFFERENT STARTING POINTS

The comparison at a glance

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