🧠 Consciousness: The First Mover

A Foundational Page of Similarity Theory
By Simon Raphael

This concept is defined briefly and more simply in the Foundational Definitions of Similarity Theory.

Similarity Theory is a cosmological and metaphysical framework proposing that consciousness is fundamental to existence, while time and dimension describe aspects of the relations and changes through which consciousness develops.

This page explores consciousness as the First Mover—not as a single event that suddenly appeared at the beginning of reality, but as the ontological foundation from which change, relation, Frames of Time and increasingly complex forms of existence become possible.

See the Introduction to Similarity Theory for the wider structure of the theory.

🌀 Philosophical Reflection

🔹 Consciousness as Origin

Similarity Theory begins with consciousness.

This does not mean that human thought, intelligence or self-awareness existed before the universe. Within Similarity Theory, consciousness has a more fundamental meaning: existence capable of relation, differentiation, response and transformation. Human awareness is one highly developed expression of consciousness. It is not the definition of consciousness itself.

Consciousness therefore does not emerge only after matter becomes sufficiently complicated. Matter, life, organisms, thought and intelligence are progressively organised expressions of an underlying conscious reality. This also changes how Frames of Time should be understood.

A Frame of Time is not an empty container through which a separate consciousness travels. A Frame of Time is consciousness itself as it exists in a particular relational configuration.

Whenever consciousness changes—through perception, thought, movement, memory, interaction, structural alteration or any other variation—a new Frame of Time is generated. There is no minimum threshold. The movement of a person, the beginning of a thought, a change within a cell, a molecular vibration or a shift in the relation between larger systems may each participate in the generation of new Frames at their respective scales.

Consciousness therefore does not merely observe reality. Through change and relation, consciousness participates in the continuing generation of reality.

🔹 Consciousness Before Self-Awareness

It is important to distinguish consciousness from self-awareness. We ordinarily associate consciousness with being awake, thinking, perceiving and knowing that we exist. These are advanced forms of consciousness, but Similarity Theory proposes that consciousness is more fundamental than reflective awareness.

A consciousness can exist and participate in relation before it possesses the capacity to recognise itself as an object of its own awareness. Self-awareness occurs when consciousness enters into a new kind of relation: consciousness becomes related to itself.

It no longer merely exists and changes. It recognises, encounters or responds to its own existence. That recognition is significant, but it does not create consciousness from nothing. It changes an already existing consciousness. Because every change generates a Frame of Time, self-recognition generates a new Frame.

🔹 Consciousness Emerging from Emptiness

Similarity Theory begins its account of our universe with emptiness, but emptiness does not mean absolute nothingness. Absolute nothingness could possess no identity, condition, relation or capacity for change. If something can change, then it is already more than nothing.

Emptiness is therefore itself a Frame of Time. It is a real consciousness-configuration existing before the articulated structures familiar to us emerged.

This means that an earlier description of Similarity Theory must now be refined. The moment when emptiness became aware of itself was not the first Frame of Time. Emptiness already existed as a Frame. If emptiness changed before becoming self-aware, those changes also generated Frames. Self-recognition was therefore not the creation of consciousness. It was consciousness entering into a new relation with itself.

The development may be represented conceptually as:

Frame of Time (emptiness) → change → further Frames of Time → increasing relation and differentiation → self-recognition → a new reflexive Frame of Time

The precise sequence of primordial Frames cannot be known. Similarity Theory does not claim access to a literal chronological record of the beginning of reality. Its claim is structural: whatever is capable of change cannot be absolute nothingness, and whenever a relational configuration changes, another Frame of Time is generated.

Self-awareness therefore marks an important development within consciousness. It does not mark the creation of consciousness itself.

🌊 Analogy: The First Ripple

Imagine a perfectly calm surface of water. The water already exists before the first ripple appears. When the ripple forms, it does not create the water; it creates a new configuration of something that was already there. The still surface and the rippling surface are different states, yet there is continuity between them.

Self-recognition can be imagined in a similar way. The appearance of reflective awareness does not bring consciousness into existence from nothing. It introduces a new relationship within consciousness.

The ripple is new. The underlying continuity remains.

🌌 Consciousness Within All Things

Similarity Theory does not reserve consciousness for organisms possessing brains or nervous systems. A rock, molecule, plant, animal and human do not possess the same relational capacities, but none begins from complete ontological unconsciousness. Everything participates in existence through relation.

At the most elementary levels, consciousness may be expressed simply through existence, interaction and transformation. At richer levels of organisation, additional relational capacities become possible: biological growth, self-maintenance, perception, memory, movement, agency, abstraction and reflection.

Human beings naturally recognise consciousness most easily where behaviour resembles their own. But resemblance to human cognition is not the measure of whether something exists as consciousness. Judging all consciousness by human thought would be rather like judging the Sun by how well it plays a violin.

A mountain need not think like a person in order to participate in relation. An atom does not require language to change. A plant need not understand itself as a plant in order to grow, respond and participate in its environment.

Consciousness extends inward and outward through every scale of existence. Similarity Theory therefore proposes no final smallest consciousness and no final highest consciousness.

🔗 Relation, Organisation and Larger Consciousness

Consciousness does not exist independently of relation. Relation is not merely something that occurs between completely finished entities; relation partly constitutes what those entities become.

Atoms enter into relations that form molecules. Molecules participate in cells. Cells participate in organisms. Organisms enter societies and ecosystems. Planets participate in solar systems, and solar systems participate in galaxies.

Science describes such structures through physical, chemical and biological processes. Similarity Theory proposes a metaphysical interpretation of their shared relational pattern.

When smaller consciousnesses develop sufficiently organised relations, their interaction may form a larger consciousness. The emergence of the larger consciousness does not require the smaller ones to disappear. A cell does not cease to possess its own history merely because it belongs to a body. A human being does not cease to be an individual merely because they participate in a society. A planet does not become unreal because it belongs to a solar system.

Relation can create greater organisation without annihilating individuality.

This is an important principle within Similarity Theory: unity does not require erasure.

🧬 Consciousness and the Self

The same relational principle applies to personal identity. A self is not fundamentally defined by possessing exactly the same matter from one moment to the next. The material constituents of a human body change throughout life. Thoughts change. Memories accumulate. Relationships alter. Abilities develop and disappear. Yet continuity of identity can remain.

Similarity Theory interprets this through relational continuity. The self is a continuing organisation of relations: relations within itself, with its preceding states, with other consciousnesses, with its environment and with the history it carries forward.

History is therefore not an additional ingredient attached to the self. History is itself relational. It is the pattern of what was connected to what, what followed from what, what was retained, what changed and what new relations arose.

Material continuity can contribute to identity, but material sameness is neither necessary nor sufficient to define it. What matters fundamentally is the continuation of the relational organisation that constitutes the consciousness.

The infant, child, adult and elderly person may differ profoundly, yet each emerges from a continuous relational history. Identity persists through transformation.

🔦 Consciousness, Frames and Reanimation

Frames of Time remain real after they have been generated. When another Frame arises, the preceding Frame is not erased, overwritten or reduced to a memory. It remains part of reality's architecture.

A Frame may become dormant in the sense that it is not presently participating in active relation, but dormancy is not permanent. An existing Frame can later enter into relation again through encounter, recognition or interaction. When this occurs, the Frame may become reanimated.

This corrects another earlier description of Similarity Theory. Consciousness is not prohibited from entering into relation with an existing Frame. An existing Frame can become active again.

However, reanimation does not mean simply replaying the original history. The new encounter is itself a change, and because every change generates another Frame of Time, reanimation simultaneously produces something new.

The pattern can therefore be expressed as:

existing Frame of Time → relation or recognition → reanimation of the existing Frame + generation of a new relational Frame of Time

The original Frame remains what it was. The new relationship creates a new continuation.

📖 Analogy: The Unopened Book

Imagine a book that has remained unopened for hundreds of years. The words written within it have not been destroyed merely because nobody is currently reading them. Then someone opens the book.

The reader does not rewrite the original pages simply by encountering them. The old structure remains. Yet something genuinely new now exists: a relationship between the book, its meaning and the reader. The previous structure has become active within a new event.

A Frame of Time is far more than a stored document, but the analogy illustrates how persistence, reanimation and novelty can coexist. The old does not need to disappear for the new to arise.

🌀 Consciousness and Generative Reality

Similarity Theory does not describe reality as a completed film containing every possible Frame in advance. Some Frames already exist because they have been generated. Other configurations remain possible without yet existing.

Possibility is not existence.

Consciousness is therefore not restricted to choosing among roads already drawn on a completed cosmic map. Through change and relation, it can participate in creating new roads.

An existing Frame may influence what happens next. Earlier structures can provide patterns, constraints and paths of relative ease. But influence is not the same as absolute determination. Consciousness encounters structure while simultaneously possessing the capacity to generate new structure.

Reality is therefore unboundedly generative, but not exhaustively pre-generated.

⏳ Past, Present and Future

Past, present and future are not absolute regions through which one universal consciousness moves. They are relational descriptions.

A Frame may be past relative to one consciousness, present relative to another relational position, and future-relative from somewhere else. An existing Frame also does not force every later consciousness to reproduce the continuation previously associated with it.

The existence of a road does not force every traveller to follow it. Likewise, an existing Frame can provide structure without eliminating freedom.

A different decision, perception, encounter or even extremely small variation can generate another relational configuration and another continuation. The earlier Frame remains real. The alternative Frame can also become real once it is generated.

For this reason, Similarity Theory is not a conventional deterministic block-universe model. Neither the future nor the past is globally fixed into one compulsory sequence. Existing reality provides history and structure, while consciousness retains generative freedom.

🧭 Dimensions as Relational Freedom

Similarity Theory uses the word dimension in a relational sense as well as recognising its conventional mathematical and physical meanings. A relational dimension describes the kinds of freedom available to consciousness in its relationship with reality.

The progression currently proposed is:

• First Dimension — Existence: the capacity to exist, interact and participate in physical change.

• Second Dimension — Life and Growth: existence combined with living organisation, growth, self-maintenance, reproduction and environmental response.

• Third Dimension — Agency: existence and life combined with the ability actively to change one's relationship with the environment through movement, learning, choice and intervention.

Humans and other animals therefore occupy the same broad relational dimension of agency, although their ranges of relation may differ enormously. A human being may relate to mathematics, distant galaxies, historical civilisations, imagined futures, moral principles and abstract ideas that other organisms cannot access in comparable ways.

This does not create another dimension merely because human cognition is more complex. A genuinely higher dimension would require a new category of relational freedom, rather than simply a more powerful form of a capacity already available.

Dimensions therefore should not be understood simply as a ladder of intelligence. They describe expanding possibilities of relation.

For the complete dimensional framework, see the Dimensions page.

🌐 Frames Within Frames

Consciousness operates at many scales simultaneously. At this moment, a human being participates in the Frame of the individual person, while changes also occur within organs, cells, molecules and countless smaller systems. The person participates within the Frame of a room, a community, an ecosystem, the Earth, the Solar System, the galaxy and larger structures.

These Frames are not arranged as a single row of photographs on one universal timeline. They are nested, overlapping and relational.

A movement of a hand may alter the Frame of the hand, the person, the surrounding environment and any larger system affected by the movement. A cellular change does not require conscious human attention before it can occur. A room does not require a person to observe it in order to possess relational existence.

Human awareness is therefore one scale of consciousness among indefinitely many. There is no privileged level at which reality suddenly becomes conscious.

🌱 The Universe as Relational Consciousness

Across nature we observe increasing organisation. Particles participate in atoms. Atoms form molecules. Molecules participate in living systems. Organisms interact within ecosystems and societies. Stars form galaxies.

Each new organisation creates relationships and capacities that were not expressed in exactly the same way by the participating elements in isolation. Similarity Theory interprets this pattern through consciousness and relation.

Reality is not merely a collection of independent objects occupying empty space. It is an evolving architecture of conscious relations.

This does not mean that every larger structure thinks like a human being, nor does it mean that greater size automatically produces greater awareness. A larger consciousness arises through the character and organisation of relations, not simply through accumulation.

The universe becomes increasingly articulated as relations develop. Difference permits relation. Relation permits further differentiation. Further differentiation allows new forms of consciousness to emerge.

💡 Consciousness Beyond the Brain

Human conscious experience is profoundly associated with the brain. Changes to brain function can alter perception, memory, personality, awareness and behaviour. Any serious account of human consciousness must acknowledge this dependence.

Similarity Theory nevertheless proposes a metaphysical distinction between the organisation through which consciousness is expressed and consciousness at its most fundamental level. Within this framework, the brain does not create consciousness from complete unconsciousness. Rather, it participates in organising a particular embodied expression of consciousness.

This is a metaphysical proposition of Similarity Theory, not an established conclusion of neuroscience.

Research concerning near-death experiences, altered states of consciousness and the neural correlates of awareness raises interesting questions about the relationship between brain activity and subjective experience, but such research has not established that personal consciousness continues independently of the brain.

Similarity Theory therefore does not need near-death experiences to prove its ontology. Its consciousness-first position arises from the internal metaphysical structure of the theory. Empirical research remains relevant as a field of comparison, investigation and possible future testing.

✨ Speculative Extension: Embodiment and Pure Consciousness

The core ontology described above does not require any particular theory of reincarnation, survival after death or disembodied consciousness. Similarity Theory nevertheless permits a more speculative extension.

A human life can be imagined as consciousness expressing itself through a particular embodied organisation. The body is not an unconscious container occupied by an independent ghost. It is itself composed of many consciousnesses and relational systems operating at different scales. An individual human consciousness becomes related to this larger biological organisation and expresses itself through the capacities and limitations that organisation provides.

Within the speculative extension of Similarity Theory, what may be called pure consciousness is the continuing individual consciousness beyond its present embodied configuration.

When consciousness “lifts the pen”, it shifts from the embodied Frame into a Frame in which it is no longer expressed through the same material form. In this interpretation, the embodied person and the underlying individual consciousness are not two unrelated beings. They are different relational expressions of the same continuing consciousness.

Human memory may be limited by the embodied form. Pure consciousness may possess access to a much broader relational history, potentially including previous embodiments and accumulated experience.

These ideas remain speculative. They should not be presented as scientifically established consequences of neuroscience or physics. Their role is to explore what may follow philosophically if relational continuity of consciousness extends beyond one material organisation.

🔥 Consciousness Is the Foundation

The relationship among the foundational elements of Similarity Theory can now be stated more precisely.

Consciousness is what fundamentally exists and enters into relation.

A Frame of Time is consciousness in a particular relational configuration.

Change generates new Frames of Time.

Time measures change and relationships among Frames.

Dimension describes the kinds of relational freedom available to consciousness.

Similarity enables patterns, relations and continuities to be recognised.

These ideas should not be understood as separate substances assembled together to manufacture reality. They are aspects of one evolving relational architecture.

Consciousness is therefore the First Mover not because there must have been one chronological instant in which consciousness suddenly appeared and started everything else. It is first in the ontological sense.

Similarity Theory does not posit a deeper non-conscious substance that must somehow manufacture consciousness. Consciousness is already there wherever existence, relation and transformation occur.

🔬 Scientific and Philosophical Resonances

The consciousness model proposed by Similarity Theory is a metaphysical framework. The scientific and philosophical works below do not prove that consciousness is fundamental, that Frames of Time are consciousness-configurations, that rocks possess consciousness, or that individual consciousness survives biological death.

They are included because they address questions that overlap with limited aspects of the theory and provide useful points of comparison and contrast.

The Hard Problem of Consciousness

David Chalmers distinguished between explaining the functions and mechanisms associated with consciousness and explaining why physical processes are accompanied by subjective experience at all. Similarity Theory approaches this problem by rejecting the assumption that consciousness must first be produced by something fundamentally non-conscious.

Instead, consciousness is taken as ontologically primary. This is a metaphysical response to the problem, not an experimentally established solution.

Panpsychism

Contemporary panpsychist philosophies propose, in different ways, that consciousness or consciousness-like properties are fundamental and widespread in nature. Similarity Theory shares the rejection of a universe that is fundamentally devoid of consciousness.

However, ST should not simply be identified with panpsychism. Its distinctive claims concern Frames of Time, relational organisation, generative change, persistence, dimensional freedom, larger consciousness formation and the preservation of individuality through relation.

For the fuller distinction, see Not Panpsychism.

Integrated Information Theory

Integrated Information Theory, associated particularly with Giulio Tononi and collaborators, attempts to characterise consciousness through the intrinsic causal and informational organisation of a system. Its emphasis on organisation and integration provides an interesting point of comparison with Similarity Theory.

The two frameworks should nevertheless remain clearly distinguished. IIT is a scientific and mathematical theory concerned with identifying properties associated with consciousness. Similarity Theory is a broader metaphysical account in which consciousness is already fundamental.

IIT therefore does not provide empirical proof of Similarity Theory.

Near-Death Experiences

Prospective studies of people resuscitated after cardiac arrest have documented reports of near-death experiences. Such experiences remain scientifically and philosophically interesting because they raise questions concerning memory, subjective experience, physiological crisis and the conditions under which conscious reports are formed.

They do not establish that consciousness continued during a verified complete absence of all brain function, nor do they demonstrate that consciousness survives death independently of the brain.

Within Similarity Theory, NDE research is therefore best understood as an area of continuing investigation rather than confirmation of the theory.

Orch-OR

Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose have proposed the Orch-OR model, which attempts to connect consciousness with quantum processes associated with neuronal microtubules and deeper physical structure. The proposal remains controversial.

Its relevance to Similarity Theory is therefore limited. It demonstrates that some researchers have explored whether consciousness might have connections to fundamental physical processes beyond conventional neural computation. It does not establish the consciousness-first ontology proposed by ST.

Information and “It from Bit”

John Archibald Wheeler's phrase “It from Bit” became associated with the idea that information and acts of distinction may have a fundamental role in the description of physical reality. Similarity Theory also gives importance to distinction, relation and information.

However, information should not simply be substituted for consciousness. Information describes differences and relationships. Within Similarity Theory, consciousness is the reality capable of participating in, generating and relating those differences.

Wheeler's ideas therefore offer a point of philosophical resonance, not scientific verification of ST.

🔗 Cross-Links

Time | Frames of Time | Emptiness | Hierarchical Consciousness | Dimensions | Self | Not Panpsychism

📚 References

• Chalmers, D. J. (1995). Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2(3), 200–219.

• Chalmers, D. J. (1996). The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford University Press.

• Goff, P. (2019). Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. Pantheon.

• Hameroff, S., & Penrose, R. (2014). Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’ theory. Physics of Life Reviews, 11(1), 39–78.

• Tononi, G., & Koch, C. (2015). Consciousness: Here, there and everywhere? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 370(1668), 20140167.

• van Lommel, P., van Wees, R., Meyers, V., & Elfferich, I. (2001). Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: A prospective study. The Lancet, 358(9298), 2039–2045.

• Wheeler, J. A. (1990). Information, physics, quantum: The search for links. In W. Zurek (Ed.), Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (pp. 3–28). Addison-Wesley.

• Raphael, S. (2025–2026). Similarity Theory.

🔎 Similarity Theory Summary

Similarity Theory is a consciousness-first framework in which reality develops through change, relation, and similarity.

Consciousness is primary. Change generates new Frames of Time, while earlier Frames remain determinate. Continuity may develop through successive Frames and may also branch into more than one genuine continuation.

Dimensions describe differing capacities and modes of conscious experience, while similarity provides a means of recognising relations, patterns, and continuity across existence.

In short, consciousness is the foundation, relation is the structure, change generates development, and similarity reveals the connections between them.

Despite its name, Similarity Theory is therefore not merely a theory about resemblance. Similarity is the investigative principle; consciousness and relational existence are the subject of the framework.