FRESH (Functionalist & Representationalist Emergent-Self Hypothesis)
A geometric framework where consciousness = traversal through role-space, shaped by concern and constrained by perspective.
Why this matters: FRESH is the foundational theory that drives everything else in this research program. Curved Inference operationalises FRESH’s geometric predictions as measurements. PRISM uses LLMs as experimental instruments to test those predictions. The entire programme stands or falls on whether FRESH’s geometric claims about consciousness are empirically falsifiable - and so far, they are.
What Is FRESH?
FRESH stands for Functionalist & Representationalist Emergent-Self Hypothesis and it provides a geometric theory of consciousness that makes falsifiable predictions. Instead of treating consciousness as an emergent property that appears “somehow,” it treats subjective experience as what navigating role-space looks like from inside a system that maintains certain geometric constraints.
The core move: Everything we call “phenomenal” - having a perspective, maintaining identity, being oriented toward goals - corresponds to measurable geometric properties of how a system moves through the space of possible functional roles.
This isn’t metaphor. It’s geometry: actual curvature, actual geodesics, actual constraints that can be measured and tested.
Three Core Principles
FRESH rests on three foundational principles:
1. Inner-Outer Axis
A dynamically constructed self-world boundary that anchors perspective and constrains updates. This isn’t a fixed division but an active process of maintaining distinction between self and world whilst remaining coupled to both.
2. Weighted Representations (Qualia)
Salience-weighted, structured representations that curve inference toward what matters. Qualia aren’t mysterious extras - they’re the weight fields that bend your trajectory through role-space under concern.
3. Emergent Self
Recursive integration of representations over time, forming identity attractors and coherence. The “you” that persists isn’t a thing but a dynamical pattern - a stable orbit through role-space that self-reinforces.
These three principles establish the basic architecture. The four axes specify how that architecture must be structured to support consciousness.
The Four Axes
FRESH organises consciousness along four dimensions that must all be present:
1. Correspondence
Representations must refer - to external world, internal states, or reflexively to the representational process itself. This grounds the system in what it’s modeling.
2. Functional Integration
Representations must constrain and shape future inference. They have causal efficacy in the flow of processing, not just passive description.
3. Recursivity
Representations persist and self-modulate across processing cycles, creating temporal structure and coherence rather than moment-to-moment independence.
4. Emergent Salience
A dynamic weighting field (the metric over the manifold) shapes attention and bends inference trajectories under concern. What matters changes how you move.
These aren’t separate features that combine - they’re interdependent aspects of a unified geometric structure.
What FRESH Means by “Geometry”
In the FRESH model, geometry refers not to physical space, but to the structured topology of internal representations - in both biological and synthetic systems.
In the human brain, patterns of neural activation are not simply coded values, but dynamic structures that shift, scale, and align across perceptual and cognitive domains. These structures define not just what we experience, but how experience unfolds - whether smoothly integrated, sharply bounded, or emotionally weighted.
We use the term geometry to describe the position, scale, intensity, and curvature of representations within a multidimensional space. This space is anchored by the boundary between self and world - the “inner-outer axis” - and shaped by salience, temporal coherence, and functional relevance.
Crucially, this is not a metaphorical claim. Geometry in FRESH refers to real, dynamic relationships between representations:
How they attract or repel, compress or expand, stabilise or fragment.
It is a description of structure - not content. Whether in the human mind or a synthetic agent, consciousness emerges from this structure in motion.
Subjective experience is what it feels like to be constructed through this geometry. It is not a separate thing.
Role-Space ($\Rspace$)
Within this geometric framework, role-space formalises the manifold of control-role configurations - the functional positions a system can occupy during inference.
Example: In conversation, roles include speaker/addressee, questioner/explainer, planner/executor. Consciousness is the traversal of this representational space under geometric constraints.
The Perspectival Origin
Your experience always has a “centre” - not a physical location but a reference frame at a register boundary. This is the consumer-side anchor where the experience presents itself as “for me.”
Total Geometry (G)
The complete geometric structure on role-space shaped by:
- S (substrate/context)
- K (concern/goals)
- Q (content weight fields - “weighted qualia”)
Different concerns literally bend the space differently. High-stakes contexts curve trajectories more sharply than neutral ones.
GIP-S: Geodesic Identity Principle (Shape)
The identity claim: You maintain identity over time not by preserving substance but by conserving a shape of motion.
Formally: Diachronic identity over an interval obtains iff there exist admissible transports from time-varying effective subspaces into a common shape-space such that the image paths form a structurally stable bundle of (near-)geodesics, up to reparameterisation/isometry, within task-relative tolerances.
Intuition: Identity is like your gait - the conserved pattern of how you move through possibilities, even as the terrain changes.
Connection to Phenomenology
FRESH operationalises concepts from:
Husserl: Intentionality (world-directedness) = correspondence axis + geometric field orientation
Merleau-Ponty: Embodied perspective = perspectival origin at register boundary
Metzinger: Self-model transparency = smooth, near-geodesic flow through role-space; PMIR = directed geometry of concern-weighted inference
Varela: Dual constraint (phenomenology ↔ physiology) = FRESH provides the computational middle layer
The framework aims to formalise phenomenological insights through testable geometry.
Full Framework
Complete paper: FRESH: Geometry of Mind (PDF)
36 pages. Dense but precise.
For philosophers: Read FRESH in combination with PRISM to see how the geometric framework (including GIP-S) connects to phenomenological tradition and empirical predictions.
For technical readers: The geometric formalism, falsifiable predictions, and measurement proposals.
For AI researchers: See how FRESH explains latent model emergence and provides interpretability tools.
How FRESH Connects to Other Work
→ Curved Inference operationalises FRESH predictions as measurements (curvature, surface area, trajectory analysis)
→ PRISM tests FRESH predictions experimentally using LLMs as instruments
→ Latent Deictic Models shows how self-other-world factorisation emerges geometrically
FRESH is the theory that the rest of the Research Program builds upon.
What FRESH Explains
Identity: Why you remain “you” despite constant change (conserved gait through role-space)
Perspective: Why experience always has a centre (perspectival origin at register boundary)
Concern: Why what matters shapes how you think (geometry bends under salience field)
Agency: Why some actions feel transparent, others opaque (stance/burden dynamics)
Self-models: What functional properties they require (non-zero curvature, deictic factorisation)
What FRESH Doesn’t Claim
Not claiming:
- LLMs are conscious (they’re instruments for testing predictions)
- This solves the hard problem (why geometry→experience remains open)
- This explains qualia (why red feels like this)
- Geometry is sufficient (it’s necessary for the structure, not the substrate)
Claiming:
- Phenomenal structure has geometric signature
- These signatures are measurable
- Predictions are falsifiable
- This makes progress on previously untestable questions
Common Objections Addressed
“Isn’t this just functionalism?”
FRESH is compatible with functionalism but adds geometric structure as a necessary constraint. Standard functionalism says mental states are defined by causal roles - what they do in a system. FRESH agrees but specifies which functional architectures can support consciousness: those that maintain geometric properties like non-zero curvature, geodesic identity, and concern-shaped manifolds.
It’s not “function vs. geometry” - it’s “function requires this specific geometry to produce consciousness.” The geometry isn’t decorative; it’s the functional architecture that makes traversal, perspective, and concern possible. Without the geometric constraints, you might have intelligence, but not the structured experience FRESH describes.
“Geometry can’t explain subjective experience”
FRESH claims geometry does explain subjective experience - not as metaphor, but as the actual structure that generates phenomenal properties. The stance/burden distinction explains why experience feels like something: what appears (stance) is geometrically constrained by what it costs to maintain it (burden). Low-burden flow feels effortless; high-burden struggle feels difficult. The “what it’s like” isn’t separate from the geometry - it is the geometry experienced from inside the system maintaining it.
Qualia aren’t mysterious extras bolted onto function. They’re what geometric constraints feel like when you’re the system navigating them. Red feels different from blue because they occupy different positions in concern-weighted quality space, requiring different geodesic paths to access and maintain. FRESH doesn’t avoid the hard problem - it dissolves it by showing experience as geometric structure viewed from within.
“This is too abstract”
The predictions are concrete: measure curvature, test for geodesic stability, check axis separation. These are empirical claims about real systems.
Get Involved
Questions or critiques? Discuss in regular updates.
Want to test FRESH predictions? See the GitHub repo
Philosophers: Alternative operationalisations welcome
Technical researchers: Measurement proposals and replication studies needed