# Cosmic-Time Generative Presentism (CTGP) — Explained Part 24 of 26 (1,824 words) The physically instantiated criterion appears at the foundation of the CTGP framework, which treats the rate of temporal progression as depending on how the laws of physically instantiated nature — gravity among them — jointly bear on temporal becoming. The criterion is built into the framework’s ground-floor ontology, not introduced ad hoc to handle edge cases. The physical framework of CTGP is nonetheless logically independent of the criterion; this appendix explores one philosophical extension consistent with the ontology but not required for its physical validity. A pressing objection is that quantum gravity hints at discrete physics — Planck-scale discreteness in causal sets or loop quantum gravity — so why should discrete computation lack what discrete physics may have? The answer turns on the distinction between ontological discreteness and symbolic discreteness. The discreteness that quantum gravity posits is discreteness of the physical causal structure itself: actual causal events are generated sequentially, each inheriting the full intrinsic character of its physical substrate. Digital computation, by contrast, is symbolic discreteness: a finite state machine manipulates representations of structure according to rules, without thereby instantiating the intrinsic properties of the system it represents. Whether the computing hardware has experiential properties of its own is a separate question this criterion leaves open. One necessary condition can nonetheless be stated for psychological pain in particular, such as grief, shame, or dread. Such pain is constituted by appraisal rather than by a raw signal, so it requires a self-model, meaning, memory, and anticipation that matter to the system itself. A system lacking those capacities could not have psychological pain, whatever it computes or represents. Having them would be necessary but not sufficient, and whether any artificial system has them is an open question, partly empirical. A Planck-scale causal element in a growing causal set is a genuine event with intrinsic physical properties; a bit in a register is a representation of such an event. The distinction is not between fine-grained and coarse-grained physics but between instantiation and representation. Russellian monism makes this precise: physical processes have both structural (relational) properties, which can be encoded and simulated, and intrinsic properties, which are not fixed by that structure. CTGP identifies the latter as the vehicle of qualia. What follows is a claim about level of description rather than about substrate: the represented structure — the sequence of symbolic states a computation implements — is an abstractum, and an abstractum is not a locus of experience. This leaves entirely open what the physical system carrying out the computation may instantiate on its own account, which is a question about that system's intrinsic properties and is not settled by the fact that the system is being used to represent something else. This argument does not require physics to be continuous; it requires only that computation be representational, which is constitutive of what computation is. This distinction can be stated formally as the Representation–Instantiation Distinction. Computational systems implement syntactic state transitions: S_{n+1} = f(S_n), where S denotes a symbolic state and f is an effective rule. Physical systems instantiate intrinsic causal dynamics: dφ/dt = F(φ), where φ is a genuine physical field evolving under real forces. The crucial asymmetry is that computation manipulates representations of states, while physics evolves actual states. A computation is therefore a mapping between symbolic states that represents a physical process; a physical process instantiates that process. The corollary is familiar at the macroscopic level: a perfect simulation of a hurricane does not produce wind. CTGP extends this principle into the domain of consciousness: a perfect simulation of a brain does not thereby instantiate the intrinsic causal dynamics of the brain it represents, because the simulation operates on representations of those dynamics rather than on the dynamics themselves. The claim is that the simulated brain is not a second locus of experience; it is not a claim about whether the simulating machine is one. The physically instantiated criterion is thus not a free-standing metaphysical stipulation but a direct application of the Representation–Instantiation Distinction to the case of qualia—grounded in the philosophy of computation, not merely asserted. Clarification of Intrinsic Physical Properties. The distinction between digital representation and ontological physical process requires clarification. CTGP’s physically instantiated criterion does not deny that physical theories may admit discrete microstructures (as in causal-set theory or loop quantum gravity). Rather, the claim concerns the difference between representation and instantiation. A digital register encodes information symbolically. The bit “1” possesses no intrinsic physical property corresponding to redness, pain, or any other qualitative character. Its significance is purely relational and interpreter-dependent. The point concerns what a symbol is, not what the system implementing it may possess. By contrast, a physical event in spacetime possesses intrinsic properties determined by its participation in causal interactions. These properties are not merely structural relations but include the local physical character of the event itself. This position aligns with Russellian monism, which holds that physics describes relational structure while leaving the intrinsic nature of physical properties underdetermined. CTGP therefore adopts the following ontological claim: physical events possess intrinsic properties that ground both causal powers and qualitative character. Physics describes the structural relations between these events, while the intrinsic properties provide the ontological substrate of experience. The criterion also presupposes a distinction that is easy to lose: the conditions for intelligence and the conditions for qualitative experience are not the same conditions. Intelligence is specified functionally — by what a system does — and is therefore settled by functional duplication. Qualitative character is not specified functionally, and no argument from task performance establishes it. A system may satisfy the first set of conditions completely while the second remains an open question. The argument against strong functionalism does not depend on the representation/instantiation framing and is not weakened by the scoping above. It follows from Russellian monism alone: functional equivalence is specified structurally; intrinsic character is not fixed by structure; therefore functional duplication does not settle phenomenal identity. This holds whatever the substrate of either system, and it is unaffected by any question about what a simulating machine instantiates. The physically instantiated criterion therefore asserts: a digital simulation may reproduce the structural relations between events without thereby instantiating the intrinsic physical properties of the processes it represents. This claim is metaphysical rather than empirical, but it functions analogously to other ontological commitments in physics (e.g., the existence of spacetime events or quantum states). Three further claims should be kept apart here. The first is what the criterion denies: a system that represents another system's experience does not thereby have that experience. Experience is here understood to involve subject-relative registration — there being someone for whom the content occurs — and a representation of a subject does not constitute one. This is a clarification of terms rather than a theory of consciousness, and nothing in it turns on whether experienced content is also available for report, attention, or behavioral control. The denial concerns representation only, and carries no implication about what the representing system may undergo on its own account. The second concerns range: a conscious existence can only be aware of what can reach it, and what can reach it is fixed by the classes of signal exchange its substrate, architecture, and interfaces permit. Differently constituted systems therefore differ in their participatory capacities — in what they can receive, register, and enter into — and their experiential ranges, including the scope, integration, persistence, and contents of awareness, are correspondingly not identical. These constraints are specifiable in physical terms, whereas experiential range is not; the former constrains the latter without determining or revealing it. The criterion asserts the non-identity of ranges; it does not specify the content of any range, and it does not hold that experience is available only to non-digital substrates. The third concerns realization: within a shared experiential category, each experiencer instantiates that experience in a way particular to itself — a point holding between any two experiencers and implying nothing about substrate in particular. D.5 Substrate-Sensitivity and the Mapping Problem ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CTGP adopts a substrate-sensitive account of qualia: not every physical process that satisfies the necessary conditions in §D.3 necessarily instantiates qualia of any given qualitative character. The substrate's specific dynamical properties — the particular way in which it integrates, amplifies, and causally continues information — shape the character of experience. This is the mapping problem, explicitly named in CTGP: the framework provides the metaphysical arena (the present + physically instantiated process + causal continuity) but does not by itself derive the specific pattern-to- quale mapping. That mapping requires additional theoretical work. Three bridge principle options are available: • Russellian intrinsic properties: the intrinsic (non-structural) properties of physical processes at Σ_σ just are the qualitative characters of experience. This is Russellian monism adapted to CTGP's temporal ontology. • IIT-style lawlike mapping: integrated information (or a generalization thereof) determines quale character via a law-like relation. CTGP's classicalization conditions set the stage; IIT or a successor theory provides the specific mapping. • Protopanpsychist composition: micro-experiential properties combine — via rules that CTGP's present-slice structure constrains — into macro-experiential properties. CTGP's physically instantiated criterion then rules out purely combinatorial accounts based on abstract functional roles. CTGP's working hypothesis is a combination of the Russellian and IIT-style options: a lawlike mapping from the intrinsic properties of causally continuous, classicalized physical processes at Σ_σ to qualitative experience, with the specific mapping remaining an open empirical and theoretical question. CTGP is compatible with Russellian intrinsic-property accounts, IIT-style functional mapping, and protopanpsychist composition — the framework constrains but does not decide between them. D.6 The Remaining Mapping Problem ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CTGP intentionally distinguishes between two explanatory levels: (1) ontological placement of experience, and (2) specific mapping from physical processes to qualitative character. CTGP resolves the first but leaves the second partially open. The framework establishes that qualia occur only in ongoing, causally continuous physical processes located on the present hypersurface Σ_σ. It also provides constraints on candidate processes (physically instantiated, classically resolved, causally integrated dynamics). However, CTGP does not derive why a particular neural process corresponds to a particular qualitative character (e.g., why a given neural pattern corresponds to the experience of red rather than blue). D.6.1 Scope of the Mapping Claim CTGP does not claim to solve the hard problem of consciousness, the bridge problem, or the character problem. Its contribution is more limited. The framework proposes: (a) a temporal locus for conscious processes (the present hypersurface Σ_σ); (b) candidate necessary conditions for conscious processes (physical instantiation, causal continuity, and classicalized dynamics); (c) constraints on acceptable bridge theories. The framework does not derive a unique mapping from physical states to phenomenal states. Such a mapping would require additional psychophysical principles beyond those supplied by the current CTGP formalism. Consequently, CTGP should be understood as providing an ontological framework within which a consciousness theory might operate, rather than as a complete theory of consciousness itself. D.7 Empirical Implications ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CTGP's account of qualia generates several empirical implications, distinguishing it from purely