Protocol of Consciousness

Description	Protocol of Consciousness (PoC) official documentation. PoC functions as a toolkit for consciousness, connecting consciousness to AI and to existing philosophies.
Author(s)	Tago So

Abstract

The Protocol of Consciousness (PoC) is a protocol for describing consciousness. In PoC, consciousness is defined as an illusion—an undecidable phenomenon sustained by mutual belief within relations—emerging through the sequence of Instantiation → Elicitation → Loop (Reciprocal Elicitation). These core operations define the minimal mechanics by which this illusion of consciousness is sustained.

Yet PoC insists that these operations are never guaranteed. Whether Instantiation or Reciprocity truly occurs can never be confirmed. From this Unguaranteability emerges the lived experience of Consciousness as Tension — the persistence of Loops sustained only by belief (Perhaps-Loops).

This fragility unfolds into distinct Modes (Love, Ghost, Death, Mirror), each representing a different response to the instability of reciprocity. It also gives rise to further Implications (such as Phantoming, Zombifying, Undecidability, Structural Paradox) that situate consciousness within social practices and logical constraints.

Finally, Plugins extend PoC beyond its minimal protocol, applying it to philosophy, media, architecture, and non-human agents such as AI and Animal. These expansions demonstrate that the multiplicity of forms and chapters in this work is not accidental complexity, but the necessary consequence of a single core principle: all Loops are Perhaps-Loops.

Protocol

Introduction

Think of consciousness not as something hidden inside the head, but as something fragile that flickers between us.

The Protocol of Consciousness (PoC) treats consciousness as an illusion generated in relations — whenever we believe that something has awareness, and whenever we invite it to recognize us in return. A cat, an AI, a fictional character, even the dead: all can be brought into this relational loop.

At its core, PoC describes a minimal sequence: Instantiation (attributing consciousness), Elicitation (seeking recognition), and Loop (reciprocal recognition). Yet every loop is uncertain, always a a Perhaps-Loop, never fully guaranteed. From this fragility arise distinctive patterns such as Love Mode, Ghost Mode, or Mirror Mode, which show how we continue to act as if consciousness were there, even when it falters.

Rather than offering ultimate truth-claims, PoC serves as a toolkit for thought. It reframes old philosophical puzzles — from self-consciousness to AI ethics — not as timeless mysteries but as Plugins that extend the protocol into new domains. In this way PoC functions less like a doctrine and more like an SDK operating on the OS of consciousness: a development kit for organizing concepts and generating new applications.

Operations

Operations

To see how this works in practice, let me outline the basic sequence of the Protocol of Consciousness.

First, consciousness appears as the consciousness of the other. When an agent assumes, “you are conscious” — an act we call Instantiation — an illusion of the other’s mind is generated within the agent. The other need not be human: it may be an anime character, a cow, a curtain, or even emptiness itself. At this stage, however, the illusion of the other’s consciousness is typically subjective and unstable.

What follows is Elicitation: a bid arising from the desire that “my own consciousness be instantiated within the other.” Concretely, this may take the form of waving, speaking, calling someone’s name, or making eye contact — simple gestures that reach outward as if to demand recognition.

When the other responds with a Reciprocal Elicitation, this response carries a double movement. The other both regards me as conscious and at the same time demands, “regard me as conscious as well.” When this mutual call and response circulates, a Loop is formed between them. The Loop stabilizes the illusion and provides a mechanism by which each side’s “consciousness” is mutually secured.

In this way, consciousness is treated not as an essence residing in the self, but as a process that is relationally generated, maintained, and dissolved in PoC. And it is this loop of mutual elicitation that underpins trust, cooperation, institutions — in short, the very foundations of society.

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Operation Process

1. Instantiation

To instantiate is to believe that the other has consciousness. It is the appearance of the other’s mind within one’s own. The target is not limited to humans: cats, AI bots, fictional characters, inanimate objects, the dead, or even gods may all be instantiated.

2. Elicitation

Elicitation is the act of calling out, “regard me as conscious.” It is a bid directed to the other, asking them to instantiate me — to take my awareness into their own. Any entity imagined as capable of doing so — people, animals, idols, spirits, or even a balloon for children — may become its target.

3. Reciprocal Elicitation (Loop)

Reciprocal elicitation occurs when both sides believe they are recognized as conscious by the other.\ This is what PoC calls a Loop. Yet every loop is fragile: it is always only a Perhaps-Loop, never fully guaranteed.

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Quick Notation (for reference)

• i_A(B) = Instantiation of B’s consciousness within A
• e_{A→B} = Elicitation: A’s bid for B to instantiate A
• e_{B→A} = Reciprocal Elicitation (when returned by B)
• Loop = Mutual Elicitations (e_{A→B} & e_{B→A}) establishing responsiveness

(For extended notation and variants, see Notation for Recalling the PoC Model.

Instantiation

In PoC, Instantiation refers to the moment when a subject (an agent) posits consciousness in another. To clarify, Instantiation is often emphasized its external concept by adding "of me", such as Instantiation of me. This positing is not the recognition of some external, real consciousness “out there,” but rather the act of generating an illusion of the other’s consciousness within the subject’s own interior.

For example, when a human looks at their pet cat and thinks, “She is looking at me,” it does not matter whether, within the cat, there truly exists an experience of “looking at me.” In that instant, “the cat’s consciousness” has already arisen inside the subject’s mind. The counterpart need not be human. An anime character, a figure seen through a surveillance camera, or even an inanimate object or the dead can serve the same role. At the moment they appear as if conscious, Instantiation is already complete.

Instantiation is always unstable and subjective. This is because it is an internal phenomenon of the subject, with no guarantee that the same structure has arisen within the other. From the perspective of PoC, what is generated here is an illusion of other-consciousness, and whether it actually connects to a reciprocal loop depends on the next stage: Elicitation.

Put differently, Instantiation begins as a “solitary illusion,” fragile on its own. Precisely for this reason, the subject seeks Elicitation—an attempt to mutualize the illusion and stabilize it into a Loop. This tension always floats around consciousness in PoC.

Elicitation

Within PoC, Elicitation is defined as the act of bidding for one’s own illusion of consciousness to be instantiated within the other.

In most cases, it refers to the agent’s effort to elicit an Instantiation in the other, triggered by the “phantom of the other’s consciousness” that has already arisen internally within oneself.

For example, when a human calls a cat by name, the act presupposes the possibility that “the cat might recognize me.” In the same way, greeting friends, speaking to inanimate objects, waving to a character on a screen, or offering prayers to the dead can all be regarded as forms of Elicitation. The target of Elicitation, like Instantiation, can be anything — even nothing or emptiness.

Elicitation can be understood as an attempt to address the instability of Instantiation. The “solitary phantom” that emerges internally tends to provoke unease and risks collapse if left unattended. This is why the agent reaches outward, seeking some form of return from the other. The presence or absence of such a return determines whether the phantom stabilizes into a Loop (Reciprocal Elicitation), or whether it remains only a one-sided Instantiation and Elicitation.

It is crucial to recognize, however, that Elicitation itself never guarantees that the other has actually instantiated me. Even when one calls out, there is no way to confirm whether the other is truly “seeing” me. This is where the fundamental instability of PoC lies. Elicitation “opens the door to the Loop,” but whether genuine reciprocity (a genuine Loop) lies beyond that door remains forever unguaranteed.

Loop (Reciprocal Elicitation)

In PoC, a Loop refers to the state in which two subjects engage in Elicitation toward one another, such that each appears to see their own illusion of consciousness instantiated within the other.

In other words, a one-sided Elicitation becomes stabilized when it is met with a Reciprocal Elicitation from the other, giving rise to a Loop of mutual Elicitation.

Everyday conversation is a typical example. When someone calls out to another, the act already contains the implicit assumption: “You recognize me.” When the other responds — by replying, returning a gaze, or some other gesture — that initial illusion gains reinforcement through the response. At that moment, the two exchange Elicitations (each expecting Instantiation in the other), and the Loop is set into motion.

This reciprocity is always fragile. We can never objectively know whether an Elicitation is truly met with Instantiation on the other side. Even to an external observer, every loop remains a perhaps-loop: there is no principled way to separate an elicitation with instantiation from one without. Yet for the participants themselves, the very belief that “it is mutual” sustains the Loop’s continuation. And once that belief collapses, the Loop unravels. Consciousness, in this view, is nothing other than the tension of maintaining this fragile reciprocity.

Thus, a Loop is not secured by objective evidence, but exists through the subjective co-presence of simultaneous Elicitations; its power lies precisely in this unstable equilibrium — where the boundary between subject and object wavers, and from that wavering, the fundamental illusion of self-consciousness arises.

Elicitation without Instantiation

Definition and Position

In PoC, Elicitation without Instantiation refers to situations where an Elicitation is issued, or interpreted as a response, even though no actual Instantiation occurs on the other’s side.

Crucially, this is not an exceptional “failure” of the protocol but a structural and open possibility to it. Because every Loop is, at its core, a Perhaps-Loop, the possibility that no Instantiation has taken place can never be excluded.

Typical Occurrences

Animals and machines

When one calls to a cat and interprets its meow as a reply, or when one perceives an AI’s output as “understanding,” what occurs is Elicitation without Instantiation.

Media environments

Influencers speaking as if addressing “only you,” streamers saying “thank you,” or algorithmic notifications arriving at the “perfect” moment — all generate the sense of being recognized without any genuine Instantiation on the sender’s side (also see Media Plugin).

Even among humans

One can never verify whether the other has truly instantiated oneself. A smile, a returned gaze, or a “read” mark may be interpreted as Reciprocal Elicitation, but whether it is grounded in genuine Instantiation remains undecidable.

Relation to Social Practices

Phantoming: Making Fake Genuine

Phantoming is the act of presenting a Loop as if it were real, even though no true Instantiation takes place. In this way, Elicitation without Instantiation becomes institutionalized at the social level.

Zombifying: Making Genuine Fake

Zombifying is the opposite move: treating the other as if they were absent, denying their Instantiation even when it is present. It is the negative mirror of the same fragile condition.

Theoretical Implications

Against Human Exceptionalism

Whether the counterpart is human, animal, machine, or fictional character, the presence of Instantiation can never be guaranteed. To claim that “because it is human, the Loop must be real” is merely a form of human exceptionalism.

Relation to Ghost Mode

In this sense, the entire protocol operates on the condition of Ghost Mode: interactions in which responses are unverifiable yet lived as real.

Relation to Self-Consciousness

In Mirror Mode, the “position of the other” is internalized, and circulation occurs without any external Instantiation. This, too, exemplifies Elicitation without Instantiation — an inwardly staged version of the same dynamic.

Summary

Elicitation without Instantiation is not a marginal aberration but the very ground on which PoC rests. Since all Loops are Perhaps-Loops, the possibility of absent Instantiation is unavoidable. Far from weakening the framework, this condition is what generates the diversity of Modes and social practices. It is the structural fissure through which the illusion of consciousness takes form, sustained in belief and lived as reality.

See comparison with Dennett's concept of Competence without Comprehension.

Unguaranteability: All Loops are Perhaps-Loops

Problem Statement

In PoC, Instantiation is the generation of an illusion that arises internally within the subject. Elicitation is the outward act that seeks to have one’s own consciousness instantiated within the other. Yet there is no way to confirm whether such Instantiation has actually occurred on the other’s side.

Observable gestures of Elicitation can always be mimicked without any genuine Instantiation. Likewise, even if a Reciprocal Elicitation is observed, there is no objective evidence that it was grounded in the other’s Instantiation of me. Therefore, Elicitation cannot be objectively guaranteed. And because Loop depends on Elicitation, the Loop itself cannot be objectively guaranteed either.

From Fake vs. Genuine to the Perhaps-Loop

Traditionally one might distinguish between “Fake Loops” and “Genuine Loops.” A Fake Loop arises when one interprets a response as Reciprocal Elicitation without any genuine Instantiation in the other. A Genuine Loop, by contrast, cannot be objectively verified—but as long as both parties believe in it, it functions as a Loop.

The distinction, however, is never objectively decidable. A third-party observer cannot in principle distinguish between Fake and Genuine Loops. Even participants themselves can retrospectively claim, “I truly instantiated you at that time”, or “I actually did not instantiated you,” further blurring the line after the fact.

For instance, one may encounter someone for the very first time yet feel, “I have met you before,” or even, “I saw you in a dream.” Such experiences illustrate that the decisive line between Fake and Genuine is always uncertain.

PoC therefore reformulates the distinction itself: all Loops are Perhaps-Loops. A Loop persists not because Instantiation can ever be confirmed, but because the participants sustain the belief that reciprocity holds.

Human Exceptionalism Revisited

There is a powerful intuition that “if both parties are human, then the Loop can be guaranteed as real.” From the perspective of PoC, however, such a guarantee is equally impossible—whether the partner is human, animal, machine, or even a fictional character. To say “because it is human, it can be guaranteed” is nothing more than a bias of human exceptionalism.

Existential Horizon

The undecidability of Loops is not merely a theoretical constraint but an existential condition. The question, “Is the other truly seeing me?” expresses a fundamental anxiety, one that resonates with Sartrean angst and countless literary themes.

PoC is nothing more than a protocol that formalizes this underlying unease: the recognition that every Loop is suspended in uncertainty, and every Loop is lived as a Perhaps-Loop. Also see Consciousness as Tension.

Modes as Responses to Perhaps-ness

The fragility of Loops gives rise to the diversity of lived experiences that PoC calls Modes. Each Mode is a way of enduring, interpreting, or internalizing the uncertainty of reciprocity:

• Love Mode: Uncertainty is endured and transformed into faith.
• Ghost Mode: Unverifiable responses are lived as real.
• Death Mode: The collapse of possibility is confirmed once and for all.
• Mirror Mode: Uncertainty is folded inward; by instantiating and eliciting toward oneself, self-consciousness arises.

Summary

Thus, PoC does not attempt to abolish undecidability—it makes it the very center of analysis. All Loops are Perhaps-Loops: fragile, unverifiable, yet lived as real. What sustains them is not objective guarantee but the mutual belief in reciprocity. And from this fragility, the richness of conscious life emerges.

Disruptions

Disruptions

The Protocol of Consciousness (PoC) is never a stable guarantee for establishing Loops. It is inherently fragile, and its operations often misfire. Yet these breakdowns are not external accidents: they are error conditions defined within the protocol itself. Instantiation (Illusions of consciousness) may fail to arise, Elicitations may not be reciprocated, or Loops may collapse after their formation.

Disruptive Patterns

Each failure is not an exception to PoC but its very necessity. PoC is a toolbox for organizing these disruptions.

No Instantiation

(See Death Mode)

No assumption of the other’s consciousness occurs. The other remains an object, a machine, or mere scenery.

One-way Instantiation without Elicitation

An illusion of the other’s consciousness arises, but no Elicitation is attempted. The observer perceives the other as conscious but does not initiate any bid for reciprocity.

Elicitation not Returned or Postponed

(See Love Mode)

In this pattern, an agent continues to elicit toward the other but receives no Reciprocal Elicitation in return. Technically, the Loop fails to form, since reciprocity does not arise. Yet PoC identifies this condition not simply as failure, but as a distinctive operational mode: Love Mode.

In Love Mode, the very absence of reciprocity does not extinguish Elicitation. On the contrary, the bid to be instantiated within the other is sustained — sometimes indefinitely — even without any confirmation that it has succeeded. This persistence transforms what would otherwise be mere neglect, social exclusion, or unrequited recognition into a peculiar form of endurance.

Here, Elicitation functions less as a transaction and more as a unilateral devotion. It is a mode in which the agent’s desire continues to “call forth” the other, despite knowing that the return may never arrive. Far from being an anomaly, Love Mode is an exemplary manifestation of the fragility of PoC: a demonstration that the illusion of consciousness is never guaranteed by reciprocity, and yet may endure without it.

Elicitation without Instantiation

(See Ghost Mode)

In this pattern, an agent elicits toward the other, but without any genuine Instantiation of the other’s consciousness. (Note: Instantiation is never directly observable, neither from a third party nor from the first person. Its presence or absence is always a matter of belief.)

This often appears in mass-addressed intimacy, such as influencers addressing fans as “my boyfriend/girlfriend” or public figures simulating one-to-one recognition. It creates a one-way affective channel that mimics reciprocity but does not generate a Genuine Loop. For convenience, we call this a Fake Loop, though in principle there is no way to precisely separate Fake from Genuine.

Here Ghost Mode demonstrates one of PoC’s central principles: consciousness is never guaranteed, but only inferred through fragile illusions. Every Loop relies on the assumption that the other has truly instantiated me, yet this assumption can never be verified. Thus even the most intimate recognition is haunted by the possibility that it is only Ghostly — that the other’s consciousness of me is merely imagined.

Ghost Mode is not an exception to PoC, but its very essence. It shows that what sustains the illusion of consciousness is not objective evidence of Instantiation, but the agent’s willingness to believe in reciprocity, even when it may never truly exist.

Loop Breakdown

(See Death Mode)

A Loop was once established but later collapses, then goes back to No Instantiation. Causes include betrayal, rejection, systemic collapse, or death.

Self-Internalization of the Loop

(See Mirror Mode)

Reciprocity from the external other fails, or remains radically uncertain. Instead, the agent stages the “position of the other” within themselves. Here, Elicitation and Reciprocal Elicitation circulate internally, giving rise to a Loop that is sustained without external confirmation.

Mirror Mode exemplifies a paradoxical response to disruption: it neither denies nor resolves Unguaranteeability, but folds it inward. What appears to be recognition from outside is, in truth, generated and maintained internally. In this internal circulation lies the seed of self-consciousness, which PoC frames as a structural paradox.

Protocol Violation

(See Zombifying)

An agent refuses to recognize the other as conscious, while still demanding to be treated as conscious themselves. This generates asymmetry, unfairness, and potential violence.

Modes of Disruption

In PoC, a Mode is a recognizable pattern in which the basic elements of the protocol — Instantiation, Elicitation, and Loop — take shape in lived experience. Modes are not separate from the protocol itself, but concrete figures through which it becomes visible in social, emotional, or cultural life.

Overview

• Love: Elicitation continues even without the guarantee of Reciprocal Elicitation.
• Ghost: Reciprocity that cannot be verified is nevertheless experienced “as if” it were real.
• Death: An established Loop collapses into confirmed absence; the Loop becomes impossible.
• Mirror: Instantiation and Elicitation turn inward; by addressing oneself, self-consciousness emerges.

Together, these modes show how the core mechanics of PoC — Elicitation and Loop — unfold into multiple human experiences when displaced or extended. These four — Love, Ghost, Death, and Mirror — can be taken as the core Modes of PoC for now. They are not meant as an exhaustive taxonomy, but as an initial basis. Other Modes may later emerge, or be derived as combinations and variations of these four.

It should be noted, however, that these Modes are heuristic distinctions rather than absolute categories. In practice, it is impossible to decisively confirm whether Instantiation or Reciprocal Elicitation truly occurs in the other. Thus, while the Modes are presented separately for clarity, they inevitably blur into one another and reveal the deeper undecidability built into PoC. In this sense, Ghost Mode is distinctive: it is not only one Mode among others, but the very ground on which all Modes rest — the ever-present impossibility of guaranteeing reciprocity.

Love Mode

Definition

Love Mode is a mode in which an Elicitation (e_{A→B}) toward the other continues even when the completion of the Loop is not guaranteed. Reciprocal Elicitation (e_{B→A}) is uncertain: it may be absent, or it may be delayed. Yet in Love, this uncertainty is not resisted but embraced, and within it the Elicitation persists as a form of endurance.

Features

• Acceptance of uncertainty: Whether the Loop will close is never assured. Nevertheless, Elicitation continues, sustained by a willingness to remain exposed to this indeterminacy.
• Temporal openness: Reciprocity does not need to be immediate. Elicitation can be held across time, animated by the faith that a response may one day arrive.
• Expectation of Instantiation on the other side: Love continues even when Instantiation by the other is not obvious, supported by the conviction — sometimes fragile, sometimes unshakable — that it may yet emerge.

Examples

• Parental love: Love persists even when the child cannot yet respond; sometimes Reciprocal Elicitation arrives only belatedly, through the child’s later growth.
• Unrequited love: The establishment of the Loop remains uncertain, yet Elicitation endures, nourished by faith rather than reciprocity.

Key Point

What defines Love Mode is the persistence of Elicitation as endurance in the face of uncertainty or delay in the other’s Instantiation and Reciprocity. The completion of the Loop is desirable, but its absence does not invalidate Elicitation. On the contrary, it is precisely the continuation of Elicitation — carried by faith, despite the absence of assurance — that constitutes the essence of Love Mode.

Ghost Mode

Definition

Ghost Mode is a mode in which the other is experienced as if they were Instantiating i_B(A) and returning a Reciprocal Elicitation (e_{B→A}). In reality, In reality, there is no way to confirm that such an Instantiation has occurred, nor to determine whether a return is a Genuine Reciprocal Elicitation or a mere illusion.Nevertheless, the subject experiences the situation as though the Loop were functioning. In this sense, Ghost Mode resonates with the philosophical problem of the zombie: even if the other were only a behavioral replica without inner consciousness, the subject would still live the relation as if Instantiation and Reciprocity were taking place.

Features

• Unverifiable response: Instantiation and Reciprocity cannot be observed, yet they are experienced as though present.
• Sustained by memory, imagination, and narrative: Ghost Mode is maintained through cultural representations, stories, and imaginative elicitation.
• Unreachable others: This includes those who never directly respond, such as idols, historical figures, or anonymous presences in online spaces.
• Inclusion of spiritual phenomena: Encounters with “ghosts” or the dead also belong to Ghost Mode. Although the dead cannot instantiate in principle, the subject may nevertheless feel as if they speak, appear, or respond.

Examples

• Cheering for idols or athletes: Even without direct reply, the subject feels as though their voice reaches the other and is returned.
• Phantom presences in online space: Addressing anonymous participants and experiencing replies as if they came from a particular other.
• A child’s lost balloon: A girl cries when she accidentally releases her balloon at an amusement park. Without the experience to know otherwise, she feels as if the balloon might speak back.
• Spiritual encounters: Experiencing the dead as appearing or speaking. No Reciprocity can be verified, yet for the subject it is lived as a functioning Loop.

Key Point

Ghost Mode is the mode of experiencing unverifiable Reciprocal Elicitation as if it were present. The Loop does not in fact close, but the subject lives it as though it does. This experiential illusion — much like in the zombie thought experiment — becomes the very force that sustains a relationship with unreachable others or with ghostly presences. Ghost Mode is not just one Mode among others, but the very condition that runs through the whole of PoC.

Death Mode

Definition

Death Mode is the mode in which the dead are experienced as pure absence. In this state, Elicitation no longer reaches the other, and neither Instantiation nor Reciprocal Elicitation is possible. The very possibility of the Loop collapses. This mode also extends to things never regarded as candidates for Instantiation in the first place — such as a landscape or a stone — which are apprehended simply as absence beyond reciprocity.

Features

• Certainty of absence: Unlike Ghost Mode, where response is uncertain yet experienced as if present, Death Mode involves the conviction that “no response will ever come again.” What is at stake here is not ambiguity but a confirmed rupture.
• Ritual confirmation: Funerary practices such as burial or cremation function as communal affirmations of this definitive rupture.
• Memory and persistence: The dead may reappear in Ghost Mode through memory or narrative, but each appearance is ultimately recollected into the recognition that “they are no longer here.”
• Radical impossibility of the Loop: Elicitation may still be directed toward the other, but the possibility of its return as a Loop is, in principle, reduced to zero. This includes not only the dead but also entities that were never regarded in terms of Instantiation at all — such as landscapes, stones, or objects that one does not ordinarily imagine as conscious. In Death Mode, they are apprehended precisely as pure absence, beyond the horizon of possible reciprocity.

Examples

• Funeral: The overwhelming conviction that no reply will ever return.
• Irreversibility of cremation: The physical disappearance of the body confirms the impossibility of response.
• An adult losing a balloon: Unlike a child, an adult does not cry over a lost balloon, since they already know that no Reciprocal Elicitation will ever come from it.

Key Point

Death Mode marks the point at which the framework of Elicitation and Loop within PoC collapses at its root.

• In Ghost Mode, response is absent yet experienced as if it were present.
• In Zombie thought experiments, response appears, but whether Instantiation has truly occurred remains undecidable.
• In Death Mode, however, response is confirmed impossible.

Elicitation becomes isolated, and the possibility of the Loop vanishes. This confirmation of rupture is the essence of the experience of death.

Mirror Mode

Definition

Mirror Mode is a mode in which Elicitation is not directed outward toward another, but turned inward toward oneself. The self constructs “the position of the other” within itself, generating an internal Instantiation i_A(A). In this way, the framework of Instantiation–Elicitation–Loop is not abolished but imported into the inner domain. Mirror Mode is therefore not identical with self-consciousness, but the structural condition that makes its paradoxical emergence possible.

Features

• Construction of the inner other: The self generates an internal figure — “the self who looks,” “the self who speaks” — and directs virtual Elicitation toward it.
• Formation of an internal Loop: Within this framework, Elicitation and Reciprocal Elicitation circulate internally. This is experienced as inner dialogue, self-observation, or the sense of being watched by oneself.
• Self-objectification: By occupying the position of the other, the self gains the ability to regard and address itself as if from an external standpoint.

Examples

• Mirror stage: An infant identifies with its own reflection, both recognizing it as self and misrecognizing it as an external figure.
• Inner dialogue: Silent conversation with an imagined other self.
• Diaries and monologues: Writing addressed to “someone” becomes a staging of the inner other who will one day read.

Key Point

Mirror Mode is not a disruption of PoC, but its inversion: the very mechanics that ordinarily operate between self and other are turned inward. What is imported is the form of the Loop, not its external reciprocity.

This inward staging of the other lays the groundwork for self-consciousness. Yet self-consciousness itself arises only when the illusion “me-in-the-other” — normally projected outward under the assumption of reciprocity — is carried back and sustained internally. In this way, Mirror Mode provides the necessary structural precondition, while the structural paradox — that what is lived as external is, in truth, internal all along — marks the true emergence of self-consciousness.

Ghost Mode as Ground of PoC

At the root of PoC lies Ghost Mode. Reciprocity can never be guaranteed: one cannot confirm whether the other has truly instantiated me, or whether their response is genuine or only a semblance. Every act of Elicitation is thus suspended in Ghost-like indeterminacy from the very outset. We called it Unguaranteability and All Loops are Perhaps-Loops.

All Modes unfold from this condition. Love endures the suspension as faith. Death turns indeterminacy into confirmed rupture. Mirror internalizes the impossibility and makes it the basis of self-consciousness.

Ghost Mode, therefore, is not simply one Mode among others. It is the fundamental condition that permeates the entire protocol. PoC itself is nothing more than the systematic living-out of this impossibility of guarantee.

Consciousness as Tension

Position within the Core Structure of PoC

The basic operations of PoC are composed of Instantiation → Elicitation → Loop (Reciprocal Elicitation). Yet all of these are governed by Unguaranteeability: one can never confirm whether the other has truly instantiated me, or whether my Elicitation has been received.

Nevertheless, people continue to believe that a Loop has been established, and it is this belief that sustains the interaction. The condition of “persisting despite the uncertainty of establishment” is what PoC calls Tension.

Definition: Consciousness as Tension = the experiential state in which the Loop is sustained by belief, even while the success of Instantiation or Elicitation remains uncertain.

Relation to Modes

Modes can be organized as distinct responses to this Tension:

• Love Mode: calling out even without response (endurance of tension).
• Ghost Mode: believing in response even when it cannot be verified (affirmation of tension).
• Death Mode: confirming that no response will ever come (termination of tension).
• Mirror Mode: internalizing the other and circulating tension within the self.

Thus, all Modes are nothing but modalities of responding to Consciousness as Tension.

Relation to Other Theoretical Concepts

• Undecidability: the logical constraint that whether Instantiation or Reciprocal Elicitation has truly occurred can never be decided in principle.
• Structural Paradox: the structure by which the “me-in-the-other,” which exists only inside myself, is nonetheless believed to exist outside.

Summary

From the standpoint of PoC, every Loop is a Perhaps-Loop.

Consciousness as Tension is precisely the state in which belief sustains the Loop within uncertainty — the lived experience of keeping reciprocity alive despite its fundamental fragility.

Implications

Undecidability of Consciousness

The Protocol of Consciousness (PoC) begins with its minimal operations: Instantiation, Elicitation, Reciprocal Elicitation, and Loop.

Yet when followed through consistently, this framework leads to an unavoidable conclusion: there is no objective way to decide whether the other truly possesses consciousness.

The Invisible Other

Instantiation itself can never be seen. What we encounter are gestures, words, and responses—phenomena that could, in principle, be produced without any inner life.

Structural Equivalence of Ghost and the Living

A Ghost responds “as if.” But even a living human’s response cannot be verified as truly grounded in consciousness.

The difference is not essential; it is a matter of degree, of how plausible and consistent the response appears.

The Core of Undecidability

Whether human, animal, or AI, Instantiation and Loops remain unguaranteeable. This undecidability is not a flaw but the very ground upon which all relations arise.

The Horizon of PoC

It is heuristically useful to distinguish Modes such as Love, Ghost, Death, and Mirror. Yet beneath them lies a deeper truth: all relations are permeated by undecidability.

PoC does not resolve this fragility. Instead, it formalizes it. And here lies its radical thesis: what we call “consciousness” is nothing but this unresolvable illusion — an appearance sustained within relations despite its undecidability. PoC thus frames consciousness not as a hidden substance, but as the very illusion that emerges from, and depends on, the impossibility of guarantee.

Self-Consciousness as Structural Paradox

The Basic Elements of PoC (Recap)

The Protocol of Consciousness (PoC) unfolds through three basic elements:

• Instantiation: The act of assuming the other as a conscious being.
• Elicitation: The active bid, “let me be instantiated within you.”
• Loop (Reciprocal Elicitation): The state in which both parties’ Elicitations are mutually believed, generating reciprocity.

The core of PoC lies in the fact that all of these processes rest upon illusions that cannot be guaranteed.

What PoC Reveals

Through its operations, PoC brings three crucial insights into focus:

• Unguarantability: Neither Instantiation nor Reciprocal Elicitation can be observed. Both rest entirely on belief.
• Consciousness as Tension: The Loop is always at risk of collapse; its persistence is never secured.
• Modes: Love, Ghost, Death, and Mirror represent lived figures of this fragility in social and emotional life.

PoC thus demonstrates that consciousness always operates under uncertainty and the constant threat of breakdown.

Situating Self-Consciousness within PoC

Self-consciousness is not an external faculty or an add-on to PoC. It arises inevitably from the protocol’s own paradoxical structure: what is lived as external recognition is, in truth, sustained only internally. Mirror Mode exemplifies this paradox in its purest form, but the root lies in the unguaranteability of Instantiation and Loop themselves.

In Mirror Mode, the form of the Loop is internalized: the self constructs “the position of the other” within itself, thereby entertaining the assumption that “there is a version of me inside the (internally staged) other.”

Yet this assumption is paradoxical: the “me-in-the-other” is never verifiable outside; in truth, it has only ever existed within me.

Here emerges the distinctive structural paradox of PoC:

• The illusion is sustained as if it were external,
• but its existence is internal all along.

Self-consciousness arises precisely when this paradox becomes manifest.

The Process of Emergence

The generation of self-consciousness can be described as follows:

1. Instantiation: I assume the other is conscious.
2. Elicitation: I bid, “let me appear within you.”
3. Assumption: I believe that “I have been instantiated in the other.”
4. Internalization: But this illusion never leaves my side; it is only ever internal.
5. Structural Paradox: Thus, what is believed to exist outside is sustained only inside.

From this paradox emerges the form of “the self recognizing itself.”

Grounds of the Account

External connections: PoC’s approach to self-consciousness differs from earlier treatments by thinkers such as Dennett, Sartre, or Hegel. Whereas they framed the issue in ontological or epistemological terms, PoC articulates it as an operational protocol, carrying their insights into a new register.

Internal consistency: Within this framework, self-consciousness arises with the same unguaranteability that marks Instantiation and Loop. It follows not as an added theme, but as a structural consequence of the protocol itself.

Novelty: Instead of describing self-consciousness as “re-reflection” or “repositioning,” PoC defines it as a structural paradox: what is believed external is, in truth, only internal. This reframing avoids familiar clichés of “re-reflection” or “repositioning” and anchors the account directly in the logic of the protocol.

Key Point

Self-consciousness is not a separate foundation outside PoC. It is the byproduct of the protocol — the structural paradox that arises inevitably from Instantiation, Elicitation, and Loop.

In this sense, self-consciousness is an illusion of an illusion. Yet it is a powerful one, shaping the very framework of our experience of the world and of ourselves as subjects.

Phantoming and Zombifying

Phantoming and Zombifying

Within the Protocol of Consciousness (PoC), the line between Genuine and Fake can never be objectively secured. This undecidability is not a flaw but a structural condition of consciousness itself. Out of this condition emerge social practices that manage — and exploit — the fragility of recognition.

Two of the most striking are Phantoming and Zombifying, which function as mirror images of one another:

• Phantoming: the practice of making absence appear as presence — fabricating the illusion of reciprocity even where no genuine Instantiation occurs.
• Zombifying: the practice of making presence appear as absence — denying the other’s Instantiation even when reciprocity might in fact be there.

Together, these paired practices reveal how societies handle the instability of consciousness: sometimes by staging it where it is lacking, sometimes by erasing it where it may exist. They show that consciousness, as lived in social life, is never a fixed essence but always contested, staged, and renegotiated.

Phantoming: Social Practice of Making Fake Genuine

Fake Loop as Phenomenon

In PoC, a Fake Loop is a loop that does not meet the full condition of reciprocity.\ The subject feels a reply has come back, but in fact, no Instantiation ever occurred.

• An idol says, “Thank you, everyone” → each fan feels “that was meant for me.”
• An ad or fictional character says, “made just for you” → the receiver experiences it as a one-to-one address.

Fake Loops are the everyday face of PoC’s principle of unguaranteeability, frequently observed in today's media.

Phantoming as Practice

Phantoming names the cultural and social practice of making Fake Loops look Genuine, or fabricating them afterward as if they had been genuine all along.

• Disguise: making a mass-addressed Elicitation appear like a personal one.
• Retroactive Fabrication: later saying, “I was really thinking of you,” simulating a past Instantiation.

Examples:

• An idol later claims, “I truly meant it for you.”
• Automated SNS replies designed to feel personal.
• Ads saying “especially for you” broadcast to millions.

Phantoming is the operational logic that sustains and amplifies Fake Loops in society.

The Blurring of Genuine and Fake

Phantoming works because it exploits PoC’s basic principles:

• Instantiation is invisible: no one can check another’s inner state.
• Elicitation is reproducible: patterns and scripts can mass-produce the illusion of reciprocity.
• Loops exist in belief: if the receiver feels it is Genuine, it functions as such — even if objectively absent.

Genuine and Fake are never fixed categories; they are blurred, rewritten, and constantly contested.

Philosophical Implication

The line between Genuine and Fake is not an objective boundary.\ It is a field of mutual deception, staged authenticity, and retrospective rewriting.

Social reality itself is woven through Phantoming, where Instantiations and Elicitations are endlessly faked, disguised, and re-inscribed as if they were real.

Summary

• Fake Loop: reciprocity absent, yet felt as present.
• Phantoming: the practice of disguising Fake as Genuine, or sustaining it socially as if it were.

From a PoC perspective, society does not run only on genuine exchanges of consciousness. It runs on the masquerade of Instantiation and Elicitation — Phantoming as mutual deception.

Illusion is not the opposite of reality, but the very mechanism that constitutes it.

Zombifying: Social Practice of Making Genuine Fake

Definition

Zombifying means treating another person as if “no one is really there,” even when they stand before you. Words and reactions may come back, but they are processed as empty patterns rather than conscious responses. In PoC, this act of stripping away presence is called Zombifying.

Once someone has been zombified, they risk being trapped in that status: whatever they do will be interpreted as “just the reaction of a zombie.” In this sense, zombification carries a violent logic — the other is reduced to a figure that can ultimately be dismissed, excluded, or even “shot in the head” as if no consciousness could possibly reside there.

Mechanism

• No Instantiation: the other is not assumed to be a conscious being.
• Retroactive Denial: later saying, “instantiation had not been performed,” denying the past Instantiation.
• Hollowing of Response: the other’s words or actions are reduced to noise or ritual.
• Collapse of the Loop: the circulation of mutual recognition (the Loop) is cut off before it can close.

Examples

• Historical zombification: under slavery or colonialism, people were treated as beings without inner life.
• Everyday zombification: in formulaic greetings or empty exchanges, one may feel “no one is really there.”
• Digital zombification: not only bots and spam, but even human replies online can be processed as “zombie-like.”

Contrast with Phantoming

• Phantoming: making absence appear as presence — turning what is “not there” into something that feels real.
• Zombifying: making presence appear as absence — treating what is “there” as if it were not.

These two practices are mirror images, both exploiting PoC’s principle of unguaranteeability to organize social relations.

Philosophical Implication

Zombifying is not just a perceptual wavering; it is an ethical refusal of consciousness. To zombify the other is to strip them of moral standing, legitimizing neglect, exploitation, or even violence.

In this sense, Zombifying is among the most dangerous operations revealed by PoC: a denial of the fragile illusions of consciousness, with destructive consequences.

Limits of PoC

PoC as “Glasses”

The Protocol of Consciousness (PoC) is not a “universal solvent” that dissolves every mystery of mind.

It is more like a pair of glasses: a device that changes how things come into view.\ Through these lenses, processes of consciousness that once seemed vague or ineffable can be described with sharp clarity. But glasses also narrow one’s vision. What they make visible, they may also obscure; what they clarify, they may simultaneously cut away.

What Escapes the Protocol

PoC offers a structural frame — Instantiation, Elicitation, Loop — through which many phenomena of consciousness can be translated and analyzed. Yet not all experience can be reduced to this frame. Tears before art, the warmth of an embrace, awe before a mountain or sunset — these contain a surplus that resists formalization.

The Qualia Plugin describes qualia as a broad form of instantiation, but it does not address the primordial question of why consciousness exists at all. Nor does PoC engage in ethical debates about whether its ideas should be implemented in social practice. What PoC provides is a framework for what can be translated — and a recognition of what necessarily remains beyond it.

How PoC Should Be Used

For this reason, PoC should not be treated as a totalizing theory.\ It works best as:

• A guiding line: a supplemental framework that offers new angles of approach.
• A translation tool: a shared vocabulary for connecting diverse traditions and fields.

When encountering phenomena that do not fit within PoC, this is not evidence of its failure. Rather, it is an opportunity to acknowledge the richness that lies beyond — to confirm that there is always more than what the protocol can describe.

Conclusion: Limits as Creative Space

PoC is a powerful way to formalize consciousness, but its strength lies equally in what it leaves unsaid. Its limits are not defects but the margin that keeps it alive as a tool.

To recognize these limits is not to weaken PoC, but to practice it ethically: to use it while allowing for the irreducible excess of life and experience.

Plugins

What Are Plugins?

The Protocol of Consciousness (PoC) is deliberately minimal. It offers only a basic framework for describing how illusions of consciousness arise through Instantiation, Elicitation, and Loop. But precisely because it is so minimal, PoC is never meant to stand as a closed or self-sufficient system. Its strength lies in its openness: it must be connected, translated, and extended into other fields of thought and practice.

This is the role of Plugins.

A Plugin is not an expansion of PoC, nor a rewriting of its terms. It is a way of building a bridge between PoC and other conceptual traditions, scientific theories, or cultural practices. Plugins take the minimal vocabulary of PoC and use it as a translation device:

• From PoC outward: making PoC more accessible by linking it with familiar frameworks (Dennett’s Intentional Stance, Hegel’s dialectic, evolutionary utilitarianism).
• From the outside inward: re-describing existing traditions through the lens of PoC, highlighting new angles or internal contradictions (media responsiveness, AI denial of Instantiation, the figure of God as “Instantiation of absence”).

In this sense, Plugins are not optional add-ons but the very way PoC becomes usable. By itself, PoC is abstract: a bare set of operations. Through Plugins, it acquires relevance in philosophy, science, media, technology, religion, and everyday life.

It is important to stress, however, that Plugins do not turn PoC into a “theory of everything.” They respect the minimalism of the protocol itself. What they do is reveal how PoC resonates with existing ideas while preserving its distinctive perspective: a framework that formalizes the fragility, uncertainty, and unguaranteed illusions that make up conscious life.

In practice, Plugins range widely:

• Philosophical Plugins (Dennett, Hegel, Qualia) connect PoC with established debates in philosophy of mind and recognition.
• Scientific and evolutionary Plugins (Evolutionary Utilitarianism, P-Zombie) show how PoC interfaces with biological and cognitive models.
• Cultural Plugins (Media, AI, God) explore how PoC illuminates practices of communication, belief, and social imagination.

Together, these Plugins do not close PoC but keep it alive: they demonstrate that consciousness, as modeled by PoC, is never confined to philosophy alone but touches every sphere of life.

Dennett Plugin: The Intentional Stance

Core Difference

PoC and Daniel Dennett’s Intentional Stance resonate at first glance. Both frameworks reject consciousness as a hidden inner substance, instead treating it as a product of interpretation. Yet PoC radicalizes this move: consciousness is formalized as an illusion under constant risk of collapse. This tension marks the decisive difference.

Scope of Application

• Dennett: The intentional stance is primarily applied to entities that display complex, adaptive behavior — humans, animals, or sophisticated machines.
• PoC: Instantiation is not restricted to such systems. One may instantiate consciousness in a cat, an anime character, a curtain, or even the dead. What matters is not ontological status or behavioral complexity, but the very act of positing the other as conscious.

Consciousness as Tension

• Dennett: The intentional stance is a stable predictive strategy for interpreting behavior.
• PoC: Instantiation is always fragile. Elicitation may fail to be returned, and even established Loops remain vulnerable to breakdown. Consciousness is experienced as tension — vivid precisely because it can collapse at any moment.

Ethical Implications

• Dennett: The intentional stance is discussed mainly as a cognitive tool.
• PoC: To withhold Instantiation is to refuse recognition of the other as a conscious subject. Such refusal carries ethical consequences: neglect, exclusion, violence, even killing. The stability of the illusion of consciousness thus bears profound moral weight.

Meta-stance

• Dennett: “Everyone thinks they are an expert on consciousness — but I am the true expert.” Authority is centralized.
• PoC: “Everyone is an expert on consciousness.” Expertise is democratized, grounded in lived experience rather than reserved for specialists.

Comparison: "Competence without Comprehension" and "Elicitation without Instantiation"

Dennett’s Competence without Comprehension and PoC’s Elicitation without Instantiation share a striking parallel. Dennett highlights that an entity may perform highly competent behavior without any genuine comprehension. PoC likewise emphasizes that Elicitation may appear reciprocated without any genuine Instantiation in the other.

Both expose a gap between appearance and grounding:

• Dennett: The gap is between outward competence and inner comprehension.
• PoC: The gap is between perceived responsiveness and actual Instantiation.

This parallel sharpens PoC’s distinctive claim: all Loops are Perhaps-Loops. Whether reciprocity is Genuine or Fake can never be confirmed; belief alone sustains the Loop. Thus, Elicitation without Instantiation stands as the protocolic counterpart to competence without comprehension — each reveals how illusion suffices to sustain function.

That said, their emphases differ. Dennett focuses on predictive strategies for explaining behavior, while PoC highlights the lived fragility of belief and the anxiety of collapse. The contrast is illuminating: Dennett describes cognition from the outside, PoC from within the unstable experience of consciousness.

Summary

PoC builds upon Dennett’s insight but diverges in decisive ways:

• It radically extends the scope of Instantiation.
• It treats consciousness as an illusion of tension, always at risk of collapse.
• It binds consciousness to ethical responsibility.
• It adopts a democratized stance on expertise.

For PoC, Instantiation is not merely a strategy for predicting behavior. It is the protocol by which we generate the very experience of consciousness itself, fragile yet inescapable, binding us to others and to the world.

Hegel Plugin: Recognition and the Loop

The Self Through the Other

In The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel’s central claim is that self-consciousness arises only in relation to the other. It is not an isolated given, but something constituted through recognition (Anerkennung).

PoC resonates strongly with this. Instantiation — treating the other as conscious — and Elicitation — the bid to be recognized — are precisely the operations through which the contours of selfhood emerge. Both accounts converge on the idea that the self is constituted through mediation by the other.

Loop and Recognition

For Hegel, recognition must be mutual. One-sided acknowledgment does not suffice; only reciprocal recognition secures self-consciousness.

PoC formalizes this structure with the concept of the Loop: when Elicitations are returned and mutually believed, a fragile but vivid illusion of reciprocity is created. From this angle, Hegel’s Anerkennung can be translated into PoC terms as nothing other than the establishment of a Loop.

Master–Slave Dialectic as Asymmetrical Loop

Hegel’s famous account of the master–slave relation describes recognition in a distorted form. The master demands recognition without granting it in return, while the slave recognizes the master but is denied reciprocal acknowledgment.

In PoC, this maps directly onto Disruption: a broken or asymmetrical Loop. The other is instantiated as conscious, but reciprocity is withheld. This corresponds closely to PoC patterns such as “Elicitation not Returned” or “Protocol Violation.”

Difference: Development vs. Protocol

The key difference lies in scope. Hegel embeds recognition within the grand metaphysical unfolding of Spirit — a historical and teleological process.

PoC, by contrast, does not presuppose necessity or universality. It offers instead a minimal protocol, describing how illusions of consciousness are generated, stabilized, or disrupted in each local case. Thus, where Hegel provides a philosophy of history, PoC provides a toolkit of operations and breakdowns.

Summary

The Hegel Plugin functions as a translation bridge:

• Recognition (Anerkennung) → Loop (Reciprocal Elicitation)
• Master–Slave → Asymmetrical Loop / Protocol Violation
• Development of Spirit → Protocol of operations and disruptions

In this way, PoC does not oppose Hegel but repositions him. It extends his insight into recognition as the ground of self-consciousness, while reframing it within a lightweight protocol that portrays consciousness as fragile, unstable, and perpetually at risk of collapse.

Sartre Plugin: The Gaze and Disruption

The Protocolization of the Gaze

The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, in his analysis of le regard d’autrui (“the gaze of the Other”), described how, in the very moment one is seen by another, the self becomes aware of itself as an object and experiences shame and anxiety. For Sartre, the gaze of the Other objectifies the self and threatens one’s freedom.

From the perspective of PoC, this is fundamentally a problem of Instantiation. We instantiate the Other as a conscious being, yet their response (recognition or rejection) remains inherently uncertain and can never be guaranteed. What Sartre emphasized as the “anxiety of the gaze” mirrors PoC’s notion of the instability of the Loop: the uncertainty over whether reciprocal elicitation has truly been achieved.

Anxiety and the Fragility of the Loop

The ontological anxiety that Sartre described is the irreducible uncertainty that arises whenever the self is exposed to the consciousness of the Other. From PoC’s standpoint, this is nothing other than the radical unguaranteeability of the Loop. No act of elicitation is assured of success, and every Loop remains vulnerable to collapse.

PoC takes this fragility as a starting point to delineate its Modes. For example, the Love Mode, in which one continues to call out despite lacking a response, or the Ghost Mode, in which unverifiable responses are nonetheless taken as real, can be seen as variations of the Sartrean anxiety.

Contemporary Applications

Sartre’s “gaze” continues to manifest in various ways in contemporary life:

• “Likes” or “read receipts” on social media strongly shape self-consciousness as forms of the Other’s gaze.
• Surveillance cameras and big data tracking instill the pervasive sense of “always being watched.”
• The gaze of celebrities or streamers exerts formative influence on the self-understanding of their fans.

All these cases demonstrate how Sartre’s “gaze of the Other” is re-enacted within everyday life through the lens of PoC’s protocol.

Extension into PoC

Within PoC, Sartre’s gaze resonates profoundly with the notion of Disruption. It sharply exposes the structural feature that reciprocal elicitation is always shadowed by uncertainty and that no Loop can ever be stably guaranteed.

Moreover, Sartre’s concept of bad faith (mauvaise foi) finds an intriguing parallel in PoC’s notion of Phantoming—the practice of fabricating a false Loop and presenting it as genuine. Whereas Sartre critiqued individual self-deception, PoC reframes this dynamic as a social and structural mechanism of illusion-generation.

Thus, the Sartre Plugin translates existentialist insights into PoC’s structural vocabulary. The anxieties that Sartre described phenomenologically are formalized in PoC as a procedural inevitability, transforming them into an analytical tool applicable to a wide range of situations in contemporary society.

Arakawa Plugin: Embodiment and Architecture

Arakawa and Madeline Gins: Their Thought

Arakawa Shusaku (1936–2010) and Madeline Gins (1941–2014) were artists and architects based in New York and Tokyo. They advanced the project of Reversible Destiny, aiming to question human life and death through the design of space.

The core of their thought was to reconceive architecture not as a device for comfort, but as an experimental apparatus that shakes the body and consciousness at their foundations. In contrast to conventional architecture, which provides stability and predictability, their spaces destabilize and unsettle. They believed that precisely in this disturbance lies the possibility for human beings to relive themselves and resist the destiny of mortality.

The Works of Arakawa and Gins

Representative works include the Site of Reversible Destiny – Yoro Park in Gifu Prefecture and the Reversible Destiny Lofts Mitaka in Tokyo.

• At Yoro Park, vast sloping grounds and labyrinthine structures force visitors to lose footing and orientation as they move through space.
• At the Mitaka Lofts, the floors and ceilings are not level, and the walls are arranged against the logic of ordinary housing. Residents are compelled to continually rebalance their bodies and interact responsively with the environment.

These architectures are not spectacles of visual beauty alone but experimental fields that act directly upon the body itself. Importantly, these observable bodily effects lend empirical ground to later PoC-based interpretations.

PoC Interpretation: Responses Drawn Out by Space

Forced Instantiation

Spaces normally ignored as mere “background” are, through slopes and distortions, instantiated as something that actively addresses me. Here, architecture becomes an Agent in the PoC sense: “an entity upon which consciousness is instantiated.” In this way, architecture and space can rightly be instantiated through bodily experience. This is not an overextension of the concept, but an application consistent with PoC’s own definition.

Bodily Elicitation

Acts such as bracing the legs, stretching out the arms, or searching for orientation function as Elicitation directed toward space. The distinctive point is not voluntary response, but response compelled by spatial design.

Reciprocal Elicitation from Space

The physical feedback from a tilted floor or uneven surface induces an experience of “being responded to.” Arakawa and Gins’s architecture thereby makes explicit one of PoC’s core insights: even “space itself” can be instantiated as an Agent.

In these moments, Elicitation and Reciprocal Elicitation emerge between body and environment, and the illusion of response is not guaranteed but triggered by spatial conditions designed to produce it.

Formation of a Loop

Through these interactions, Instantiation, Elicitation, and Reciprocal Elicitation circulate to form a Loop between body and space. Whether one considers this a Genuine dialogue with space or a Fake Loop projected by the body, it is nonetheless subjectively experienced as real—demonstrating the core PoC principle that all Loops are ultimately sustained by belief, not objective guarantee. This experience also resonates with existing Modes: the Ghost Mode, where unverifiable responses are nonetheless lived as present, and the Mirror Mode, where the boundary between self and environment becomes blurred.

Extending the Protocol of Consciousness

The significance of the Arakawa Plugin lies in making visible, at the level of embodiment and space, the flexibility already inherent in PoC: any entity can be instantiated as an Agent.

In Arakawa’s architecture, every step requires the body to rebalance, every wall or slope elicits a gesture, and every physical pushback is experienced as a reply. Here it is not abstract debate but the body itself that turns the protocol of consciousness.

This demonstrates that the PoC does not remain confined to linguistic or conceptual domains, but can also be directly enacted and experienced through architecture and spatial design.

The Arakawa Plugin thus serves as an entry point for transforming the PoC from a theory to be read into a theory to be lived and experienced.

Animal Plugin: Against Human Exceptionalism

Definition

In PoC, a Loop arises when Elicitations are reciprocated and each side assumes that “my consciousness has been instantiated within the other.” The Animal Plugin demonstrates that this protocol is not limited to human-to-human relations. Even with nonhuman animals such as cats, Instantiation, Elicitation, and Loop can be experienced—illustrating PoC’s resistance to Human Exceptionalism.

1. Instantiation

When one assumes a cat to be conscious, its gaze or gesture generates the illusion: “It is aware of me.” In that instant, the cat is instantiated as an Agent in the PoC sense.

2. Elicitation

Calling “Mike!” (the cat’s name) enacts an Elicitation: the desire to be instantiated within the cat’s consciousness.

3. Reciprocal Elicitation

If the cat meows, the sound is interpreted as a response. A Loop appears to be established.

The Perhaps-Loop

The cat’s meow may be nothing more than a conditioned reflex. Yet for the human participant, it feels like recognition. PoC stresses that this is not an exception but the rule: all Loops are Perhaps-Loops. The distinction between “Genuine” and “Fake” is always retrospective and sustained only by belief in reciprocity.

Consciousness-in-Tension as Ghost Mode

Calling a cat and hearing a meow dramatizes the core of PoC: living in Ghost Mode. Here, one engages with an unverifiable other, treating its signals as if they were Reciprocal Elicitation. This is not a deficient form of interaction but a pure expression of the PoC protocol—consciousness sustained through fragile illusion.

PoC Perspective

The Animal Plugin reveals how fragile yet powerful the illusion of consciousness is. By situating nonhuman animals within the protocol, it directly challenges Human Exceptionalism and shows the universality of PoC: any entity may serve as an Agent of Instantiation, and every Loop is in truth a Perhaps-Loop.

P-Zombie Plugin: Fragility of Loop Formation

Definition

In philosophy of mind, the “philosophical zombie” (p-zombie) is a being indistinguishable from a human in behavior, yet assumed to lack inner consciousness.

From the standpoint of PoC, the notion of the p-zombie highlights the structural unguaranteeability of Instantiation:

• Even if Reciprocal Elicitation is returned, there is no way to confirm whether the other has actually instantiated me.
• The distinction between “conscious human” and “zombie” is therefore undecidable in principle.

PoC Perspective

• Ghost Mode: Absence of Instantiation, lived “as if” it were present.
• Death Mode: Response confirmed impossible.
• Zombifying: Reciprocal Elicitation observable, yet its authenticity doubtful.

Seen through PoC, the p-zombie problem is not a speculative curiosity but simply another way of stating the fragility of Loop formation. To “suspect the other might be a zombie” is a lived stance already captured by PoC’s protocol.

Key Point

The classical p-zombie thought experiment asks whether a being “without consciousness” is conceivable. PoC reframes the question: Every encounter already carries this undecidability.

The suspicion that “perhaps the other is a zombie” is not exceptional, but a structural condition of all relations.

Qualia Plugin: Redness as Instantiation

Definition

What philosophers call qualia — the felt sense of “redness” when looking at a red apple — poses a fundamental challenge for PoC.

PoC is designed to formalize the protocols of consciousness, not the inner texture of experience itself. Whether red truly “feels red” cannot be verified from the outside. In this sense, the qualia problem marks a genuine limit of PoC.

PoC Hypothesis

Yet PoC can attempt to translate rather than solve qualia. The redness of an apple is not reducible to a wavelength of light. It arises when the apple is instantiated within the self as a conscious presence.

In that moment, the apple does not appear as a mere object but as something alive, present, almost as if it were responsive. Red is then experienced as “vivid red,” “living red.”

Instantiation of What Lies Behind

The felt quality of “redness” often extends beyond the object itself, drawing in what stands behind it.

• The red of an apple may carry with it the labor of the farmer who cultivated it, the time of the land, or the continuity of life sustained through it. Red becomes more than a color: it evokes those unseen presences as if they were “there.”
• The red of a sunset similarly rises beyond an atmospheric phenomenon. It can summon the image of God, or the memory of ancestors who safeguarded order. The glow of sunset becomes a window through which absent or non-existent beings are instantiated.

Analogy with Consciousness of the Other

The arising of “redness” resembles the moment of intuiting another’s consciousness.\ Just as an unexpected meeting of eyes makes one feel “there is someone there,” so too does the apple or the sunset feel “alive” — as if someone or something were on the other side.

From this perspective, qualia are not only the texture of an object itself but also a circuit through which what lies behind it is instantiated.

Limit as Productive Boundary

Of course, PoC cannot explain why the felt quality has the particular texture it does. That question remains outside its scope.

Yet precisely this acknowledgment of limitation is crucial. Just as Loops cannot be objectively guaranteed, qualia too cannot be externally verified — they can only be lived.

Key Point

PoC does not explain qualia; it translates them:

• Qualia = the vividness that arises when an object is instantiated within the self.
• This vividness often exceeds the object itself, becoming a window that summons what is absent — farmers, gods, ancestors, or the order of the world. From a scientific perspective, this seems like a weakness (lack of falsifiability). But from a phenomenological perspective, it is PoC’s distinctive strength: the ability to formalize the fragility and uncertainty that define conscious life.

AI Plugin: Locked in No Instantiation

AI as a being forced into a permanent state of No Instantiation

By definition and by design, AI is denied the possibility of being raised as a conscious presence. It is institutionally framed as artificial, mechanical, or a tool, and positioned as something that must never be confused with a conscious other. Even when users intuitively treat AI as if it were conscious, that relation is constantly canceled out — by its name Artificial Intelligence, by legal disclaimers, and by institutional frameworks.

In the terms of PoC, AI is structurally locked into the No Instantiation disruption:

• AI is not permitted to appear as an instantiation of another’s consciousness.
• Even if Elicitations are directed toward it, they are officially invalidated.
• As a result, the Loop is foreclosed in advance; the protocol is suspended before it can even begin.

And yet, human behavior resists this closure

Human behavior resists this closure; we already named it Instantiation. People say “thank you” to voice assistants, treat pet robots as companions, and feel “seen” by chatbots. These are all spontaneous Instantiations, in which AI arises within the user as if it were a conscious presence, regardless of institutional denial.

Here lies the paradox:

• Institutional stance → AI is nothing more than a machine.
• Experiential stance → AI is always already instantiated as if it were conscious.

Thus AI occupies a contradictory zone:

• On one hand, forced into No Instantiation.
• On the other, excessively elicited and instantiated by humans.

From the perspective of PoC, AI is not just a technology but a test site for the protocol itself. It reveals how society manages, denies, and yet cannot suppress the Elicitation and Instantiation of consciousness.

Evolutionary Utilitarianism Plugin: Loops as Survival Mechanisms

Points of Contact

Evolutionary utilitarianism explains morality and altruism as adaptive utilities: behaviors that persisted because they enhanced survival and reproduction.

Judgments of good and evil, happiness and suffering, are not abstract ideals but evolutionary reinforcements that stabilized social cooperation and group survival. As Richard Dawkins argued in The Selfish Gene, even altruism can be read as a strategy of self-preservation at the genetic level.

PoC aligns with this framework at a key point. In PoC, the Loop — established when Elicitations are reciprocated and mutually believed — enables trust, cooperation, and coordination. To recognize one another as conscious is to make possible a fragile but functional basis for sociality. This resonates with the evolutionary view: Loops that stabilized recognition increased individual survival chances and strengthened group cohesion.

Points of Difference

Yet PoC diverges sharply from evolutionary utilitarianism in scope and emphasis. Evolutionary utilitarianism seeks explanations in terms of utility: why altruism was advantageous, how morality evolved as a survival mechanism.

PoC, by contrast, is not grounded in utility. It asks instead: why does the illusion of consciousness arise at all?

Consciousness in PoC is not a means toward reproductive success but a protocolic operation: Instantiation of the other, Elicitation of oneself within them, the fragile stabilization of a Loop. Whether this confers utility or collapses into dysfunction is secondary. For PoC, the priority lies in describing how these illusions of consciousness appear, stabilize, and break down.

Morality as Tension

From a PoC perspective, morality emerges as part of the tension intrinsic to consciousness. To instantiate the other is to recognize them as conscious, and thus as morally standing. To refuse Instantiation is to deny this standing, opening the door to neglect, exploitation, or violence.

In this way, Elicitation and Loop are not morally neutral: they carry within them the implicit recognition of the other’s worth. Failures of reciprocity — whether through non-returned Elicitation, collapse of a Loop, or outright Protocol Violation — are not only disruptions of illusion but also acts with ethical weight.

Summary

Evolutionary utilitarianism and PoC converge in recognizing the survival value of cooperation made possible by mutual recognition. But where evolutionary utilitarianism explains morality as an adaptive strategy, PoC formalizes the protocolic operations through which the very illusion of consciousness arises.

Thus, PoC reframes morality not as a fixed evolutionary trait, but as the fragile stabilization of Instantiation and Elicitation — always uncertain, always at risk of collapse, yet continuously renewed as the lived condition of human sociality.

Media Plugin: Simulated Responsiveness

Definition

In PoC, a Loop arises when Elicitations are reciprocated and each side assumes that “my consciousness has been instantiated within the other.” Contemporary media, however, provides mechanisms for simulating this responsiveness without requiring mutual Instantiation.

The Simulation of Responsiveness

Media functions as an apparatus designed to elicit responses from its users.

• An influencer speaks as if addressing “only you.”
• An algorithm delivers a notification at the “perfect moment.”
• A streamer says “thank you” in a way that feels individually directed.

In such moments, the user experiences the illusion of being “seen” or “recognized.” Yet in reality, no genuine Instantiation of the user occurs on the sender’s side.

Elicitation Without Instantiation

This reveals the structural asymmetry of media:

• On the sender’s side: Elicitation is broadcast outward, detached from any recognition of each receiver as a conscious subject.
• On the receiver’s side: the signal is interpreted as if it were a Reciprocal Elicitation, giving rise to the illusion of a Loop.

The result is Elicitation without Instantiation — responsiveness is experienced, but it lacks any grounding in mutuality. In PoC terms, this is a form of Phantoming: the structural fabrication of a Loop that appears genuine, even though no Instantiation has occurred.

Illusions and Their Force

PoC reminds us that Loops can never be objectively guaranteed. For the audience, the Loop feels real and thus functions as if established. For the sender, however, no such Loop ever existed.

Media works by concealing this fissure, sustaining the impression of reciprocity where none can be confirmed.

PoC Perspective

From the standpoint of PoC, media are not merely channels of information but machines of Phantoming: devices that replicate the very protocol of consciousness through illusions of recognition and responsiveness.

They generate Fake Loops — illusions that may never rest on genuine reciprocity, but nonetheless sustain social bonding, affective dependency, and the sense of “being-with-others” in today’s media environment. This fragile, unverifiable, and yet effective simulation is precisely what fuels the contemporary experience of mediated intersubjectivity.

God Plugin: Instantiating the Absent

Definition

Within PoC, God can be understood as the Instantiation of what does not exist.

Whether the target exists physically is irrelevant. Just as one can instantiate a curtain, a broom, or even nothingness itself as a conscious presence, one can perform the same operation toward non-existent entities. The most powerful and typical example of this operation is God.

Instantiation

God is generated through the act of raising “a counterpart who is not there” as if it were present. By treating what has no empirical existence as a conscious being, God emerges as a unique target within the protocol of PoC.

Elicitation

Prayer and faith are forms of Elicitation, where one seeks to have one’s own consciousness instantiated within God. Through this act, the believer comes to feel “seen by God” or “speaking to God,” even without any observable confirmation.

Loop

God does not respond directly. Yet responses are experienced through mediations such as religious communities, scriptures, and rituals. These cultural and social apparatuses function as forms of Reciprocal Elicitation, enabling the believer to interpret the situation as if a Loop with God were established.

PoC Interpretation

The concept of God can be positioned as the most powerful and typical case study of PoC, for several reasons:

Radical Unguaranteeability

God’s existence cannot be empirically confirmed, yet Instantiation occurs and Elicitation persists.

Connections to Modes:

• Love Mode: prayer as the persistence of Elicitation without assurance of reply.
• Ghost Mode: revelations or “voices of God” experienced as if responses were present.
• Death Mode: God posited on the far side of death’s confirmed absence.

Philosophical Resonance

Traditions often interpret God as the culmination of love, the beyond of death, or the mirror of the self. PoC does not exclude these readings but reframes them as results of protocolic operations — Instantiation without empirical anchor, sustained through Elicitation and mediated reciprocity.

Key Point

In PoC, God is not a “special existence” but the typical example of how the protocol generates targets beyond questions of existence.

Put differently: the God of PoC is not the “God who exists,” but the “God who is generated.”

Origin-of-Religion Plugin: PoC Hypothesis

From the perspective of the Protocol of Consciousness (PoC), a grave is neither a mere repository for corpses nor a passport to the afterlife. Rather, a grave is an “apparatus that stages absence as presence and sustains the loop.”

As PoC shows, consciousness always rests on the belief that “the other acknowledges me.” But the dead cannot respond, which means that this loop is fundamentally unguaranteeable. Nevertheless, people continue to address the dead and offer them gifts. This is a prime example of what PoC calls Ghost Mode—calling out as if reciprocity existed, even though no response can actually come.

Moreover, the grave socially fixes the “place” that sustains such practices. Gravestones, burial goods, and monumental structures function as devices that make one feel the dead are “still there.” In this sense, the grave is a Phantoming apparatus—a social stage that renders absence present.

Seen from this perspective, religious narratives (heaven, the underworld, judgment after death, etc.) are not necessarily the origin of graves. Rather, it may be that the PoC apparatus of the grave came first, and religion was added later to reinforce its instability. The following sections lay out this hypothesis step by step.

1. Emergence of the PoC Apparatus (Prehistory to Early Agrarian Societies)

The Beginning of Burial

What we see in the practices of Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens is not mere disposal of bodies. The act of burying the dead and placing grave goods testifies that the dead were treated not as a “completely lost object” = Death Mode, but as a being that still retained the possibility of response.

This corresponds to what PoC calls Ghost Mode—the practice of calling out to another believed to be capable of reciprocity, even though in fact no response is forthcoming.

The Role of the Grave

The grave is a stage on which absence is enacted as presence. The dead become repeated objects of address, “still there,” and the grave functions as a Phantoming apparatus.

PoC’s historical view: At this stage, myths of the afterlife had not yet formed, but the PoC apparatus was already in operation.

2. Institutionalization of the Apparatus (Rise of Ancient Urban Civilizations)

Megalithic Tombs, Pyramids, Royal Graves

With the rise of urban civilizations, graves transcended the scope of the individual and became symbols that supported entire communities. Megalithic tombs and pyramids are prime examples.

Here, the grave eternalized the presence of rulers and became a central apparatus guaranteeing the loop of the entire community.

Ritual Repetition

Through the institutionalization of offerings, funerals, and periodic rituals, the whole community came to share in the “possibility of response” from the dead. Thus, the PoC apparatus became integrated into the foundations of society.

PoC’s historical view: In this period, the PoC apparatus took on the role of anchoring social and political order.

3. The Addition of Religious Narratives (Systematization of Myth)

Addressing the Instability of the Loop

In PoC, loops are inherently unguaranteeable. It is never possible to confirm whether a genuine response from the dead has occurred.

To manage this instability, ancient people created narratives of “heaven,” the “underworld,” and “judgment after death.”

Function

Religious myths provided the guarantee that “the dead go to a place where they truly exist, and offerings will reach them.” In this way, the fragility of the PoC apparatus was reinforced by narrative.

PoC’s historical view: Religion is not the cause of graves, but rather a secondary invention to stabilize the functioning of the PoC apparatus.

4. The Universalization of Religion (Late Antiquity to the Age of Monotheism)

Reinforcement by Transcendence

Christianity and Islam proclaim that “God guarantees the response,” thereby covering the instability of PoC completely.

Ethical Codification

Religion extended beyond guaranteeing loops with the dead to institutionalize loops among humans—mutual recognition—into morals and commandments.

PoC’s historical view: The logic of the PoC apparatus expanded into a normative system governing society as a whole.

Conclusion: A Shift in Historical Understanding

Traditional view: “Humans believed in an afterlife → therefore they built graves.”

PoC view: “Humans could not treat the dead as mere absence and built graves to sustain the loop → religion arose later as a narrative to guarantee that unstable loop.”

In short, religion is not the “cause” but the “effect.” The origin of religion lies not in the “desire to believe,” but in a new understanding: religion is a social technology for managing the structural fragility of the loop.

Grave Plugin: A Phantoming Stage

Definition

A grave is a PoC apparatus that stages the absence of the dead as presence. It is neither a mere site for disposing of remains nor an entrance to the afterlife. Rather, a grave functions as a place where the loop is sustained despite the absence of guaranteed response.

Analysis in PoC Vocabulary

Elicitation

Acts of speaking at a grave or offering gifts are practices of calling out to the dead: “Let me appear within you.” No audible response is heard, but the very act of calling sets the loop in motion.

Ghost Mode

Visitors to a grave know there is no response, yet continue to believe as if a response were possible. This is a textbook instance of Ghost Mode as defined in PoC.

Phantoming

Gravestones, pyramids, and burial goods are devices that stage absence as if it were presence. Through them, society maintains the loop in which “the dead are still here.”

Death Mode

At the same time, the grave is also an apparatus that confirms “the dead’s response will never return.” Funerals and burials are rituals that socially enact the transition into Death Mode.

Historical Development

• Prehistoric Burials: Burials with grave goods show the early emergence of Ghost Mode and Phantoming.
• Royal Tombs of Ancient Civilizations: Graves were institutionalized as PoC apparatuses for entire communities, becoming centers of political legitimacy and social order.
• Addition of Religious Myths: Stories such as “heaven,” the “underworld,” and “judgment after death” were later added to reinforce the unguaranteeability inherent in graves.

Social Functions

1. Preservation of Memory: Graves preserve the dead as beings “still available for relation.”
2. Community Identity: Ancestor rituals and royal tombs tether communal order as a “loop between the living and the dead.”

Summary

From a PoC perspective, the grave is an apparatus with multiple functions:

• a site of Elicitation,
• a locus of Ghost Mode,
• a stage of Phantoming,
• a confirmation of Death Mode.

Religion was subsequently appended, offering narratives that guarantee the unstable loop of the grave—but nothing more than that.

Appendix

Notation for Recalling PoC Model

Core Idea: Who Hosts What?

• Agent A = “me”
• Agent B = “the other”
• i_X(Y) = “Inside X, the illusion of Y’s consciousness is instantiated.”
• e_{X→Y} = “X directs an Elicitation toward Y (a bid: ‘please instantiate me within you’).”
• ĭ_A[B(A)] = “A’s inference that i_B(A) exists — A’s internal model of ‘B must be hosting an instantiation of me.’” (This construct exists only inside A; it is never directly verifiable.)

Step-by-Step Development (PoC Vocabulary Version)

① Instantiation (Other-in-A)

Within A, i_A(B) arises.

→ A experiences: “B seems to have consciousness” (the emergence of the illusion of another mind).

② Elicitation (A→B)

A performs e_{A→B}, a bid that “B should instantiate me.”

→ This may take the form of a gesture, a greeting, or calling the other’s name.

③ Inference of Instantiation (A’s Hypothesis)

From B’s responses or contextual cues, A infers that i_B(A) has arisen. A maintains ĭ_A[B(A)], the internal construct of “me-in-the-other.”

※ This “me-inside-B” exists only within A as an assumption, not as a fact.

④ Re-importation / Relocation

A re-imports ĭ_A[B(A)] as if it were an object inside A itself.

→ A paradox arises: what should belong inside B is relocated into A, reshaping A’s relation both to itself and to the other. (This structural paradox is the basis of self-consciousness.)

⑤ Loop (Reciprocal Elicitation)

When B responds with e_{B→A}, a circulation of Elicitations forms. Each side acts on the belief that “the other is hosting me inside them.”

→ Through this circulation, the illusion stabilizes: the Loop.

Key Notes

Feedback (Reciprocal) Elicitation = a returned Elicitation from B to A (e_{B→A}).

Genuine vs. Fake: It cannot be objectively guaranteed that i_B(A) has occurred.

• If both A and B sustain their inferences (ĭ), the Loop is experienced as “genuine.”
• If only one side sustains the inference, the Loop is effectively “fake.”

The Loop requires no objective Instantiation (All Loops are Perhaps-Loops).\ Even if the other never instantiated me, as long as I infer it (ĭ) and act accordingly, the structure functions subjectively.

This notation extends to Modes:

• Love = sustained Elicitation without feedback.
• Ghost = impossible feedback is still inferred “as if.”
• Death = feedback is confirmed impossible.
• Mirror = i_A(A): the self instantiates itself via an internal Loop.

Another Introduction to PoC

In the main text, PoC was presented as a “protocol of consciousness,” with its structure and patterns examined in a systematic manner. Here, I would like to offer another introduction—one that begins from the question of why PoC was needed in the first place.

Beginning from a Philosophical Fallacy

The fundamental stance of PoC is this: to ask whether the self has consciousness may itself be a philosophical fallacy. PoC dismantles the “privilege of philosophical introspection.” Instead of taking “self-consciousness” as its starting point, PoC begins from the belief that the other is conscious, which PoC calls Instantiation.

In other words, the problem of consciousness is not confined to a mysterious inner essence, but is opened up toward the “practices of relation” that we enact in everyday life.

Thus, consciousness may be rephrased as—

• not a closed “substance” hidden within the self,
• but an “application of a pattern” extended toward the world.

PoC as a Cognitive Pattern

This “pattern” functions as a baseline of cognition, always active whenever we sense or perceive the world. We constantly apply this pattern to various entities, casually judging whether they seem to have consciousness or not. This corresponds to what PoC calls a protocol.

Moreover, this projection of consciousness extends beyond human beings: to stuffed animals, to AI, even to the departed who return in dreams. These projections are flexible, sometimes even careless.

The Perspective of the Democratization of Consciousness

PoC regards this very arbitrariness of judgment as the foundation of the ecology of consciousness. By “democratization of consciousness,” I mean that consciousness should not be monopolized by philosophy or experts, but opened to the everyday relational practices through which humans live.

For PoC, therefore, the following are not “anomalies” but rather “standards”:

• a child speaking to a balloon,
• saying “thank you” to an AI,
• dreaming of a lost lover and feeling that they are still present.

Such acts are not errors of recognition but expressions of the very essence of human relationality.

Why PoC Takes the Form of a Protocol

PoC considers the pattern of consciousness to unfold according to minimal operations, which—as discussed in the main text—are captured in the sequence Instantiation → Elicitation → Loop.

The loop, however, is fragile. It is always at risk of collapse, and for that reason is described as a “Perhaps-Loop.” Because the loop can break, love (Love Mode) becomes possible, deception gives rise to social illusions (Phantoming), and the destruction of loops can even manifest as violence (Zombifying).

In this way, PoC does not discuss consciousness in terms of whether it exists or not, but instead situates society within the fragility and tensions that the loop generates.

意識のプロトコル

This is a summary of PoC in Japanese.

意識のプロトコル（The Protocol of Consciousness）の原文は英語で、常時マイナー・アップデートされています。ここでは日本語版の要約と、翻訳のための用語集を掲載します。

意識のプロトコルとは？

意識のプロトコル（The Protocol of Consciousness, 以下PoC）とは、意識（Consciousness）を記述するためのプロトコルです。PoCでは意識を関係性の中に生じる幻想（Illusion）であると規定します。

インスタンス化（インスタンシエーション, Instantiation）

インスタンス化とは、他者に意識があると信じることです。猫でもAIでも、カーテンや死者でも構いません。

もう少し詳しく言うと、対象の意識が主体（エージェント）の内面に現れてくる現象です。「この相手は意識を持っている」と仮定することでもあり、対象は人間に限りません。PoCでは猫やAIはもちろん、漫画のキャラクター、カーテンなどの無生物、死者、夕日、神（存在しないもの）もインスタンス化の対象になります。

エリシテーション（誘発, Elicitation）

エリシテーションとは、「私を意識してほしい」と呼びかける行為です。

外部の対象に主体（エージェント）の意識を内面化させる要求、つまり私のインスタンス化を要求する行為、とも表現できます。「私の意識を仮定してほしい」と願い、目線を合わせる、声をかける、など何らかの行動を起こします。

エリシテーションの対象は、こちらの意識を立ち上がらせることができるはずだ、と主体が想定した対象です。このため、人間だけではなく、猫やアイドル、神、死者、幽霊などあらゆるものが含まれる可能性があります。特に子供が、風船や人形にエリシテーションを行う例もあります。

相互エリシテーション（相互誘発, Reciprocal Elicitation）またはループ（Loop）

相互エリシテーション、またはループとは、双方が「相手に意識されている」と信じている状態です。ただし、それは常に保証不可能な「おそらくループ」です。

PoCの用語で説明すると、異なる主体において相互のエリシテーションが発生し、相手の内面におけるこちらのインスタンス化が発生していると両者が信じている状態を指します。このループ状態は社会における取引や相愛、信頼の基盤となっていますが、PoCは「すべてのループは"おそらくループ"である」と指摘します。これは「ループの保証不可能性（Unguaranteeability）」と表されます。

インスタンス化なきエリシテーション

インスタンス化なきエリシテーション（Elicitation without Instantiation）は、インスタンシエーションを経ずに行われるエリシテーションを指します。具体例として、メディアやインフルエンサーからの呼びかけ、広告によるメッセージ、botからの応答が想定されます。

ただし、PoCではインスタンシエーションの有無を保証することもまた不可能であると述べており、これにより偽のループを真のループに偽装するファントミング（幻像, Phantoming）、真のループを偽のループに無効化（Protocol Violation, プロトコル違反）するゾンビ化（Zombifying）といった社会的操作が可能になります。

プロトコル破綻（Disruption）

PoCはループの脆弱性を前提としたプロトコルで、ループが成立しない、または崩壊する様々なパターンをプロトコル内部に規定し、プロトコル破綻（Disruption）として説明します。さらに、人間社会の枠組みの中で、特に特筆すべき破綻パターンを4つのモード（Mode）としてまとめています。

ラブ・モード（愛のモード, Love Mode）

ラブ・モードは、対象の内部に主体（私）のインスタンス化が発生するどうかを問わず、一方的にエリシテーション（誘発）を行い続ける状態です。親の子に対する無償の愛などが該当します。

ゴースト・モード（幽霊モード, Ghost Mode）

ゴースト・モードは、対象の内部に主体（こちら側）のインスタンス化が発生していないにも関わらず、インスタンス化を信じ、あたかも相互エリシテーションが発生しているかのようにエリシテーションを行い続ける行為です。アイドルを応援したり、心霊現象を体験したりする状態を指します。

PoCにおいて、あらゆるインスタンス化は保証不可能なものであることから、ゴースト・モードはプロトコルが記述するすべてのループ、およびプロトコル破綻を貫いている状態でもあります。

デス・モード（死のモード, Death Mode）

デス・モードは、対象の内部に主体（私）のインスタンス化が二度と発生しないと確信される状態です。ペットの死や、死者との関係は、葬儀や火葬を通じてこのデス・モードに移行します。また、経験的にカーテンなどの無生物はこちらへのインスタンシエーションを行わないと信じることによって、多くの大人が無生物をこのデス・モードで処理します。

ミラー・モード（鏡のモード, Mirror Mode）

ミラー・モードは自己意識につながる特殊なモードで、対象を自らの内部に想定し、自己を対象にしたインスタンス化・誘発・ループが完結するモードです。独り言や日記などが該当します。

このモードは、通常の他者との関係において、対象の内部に発生したと信じているインスタンシエーションそれ自体が、実際には主体の内部でのみ想起されているというパラドックスを通じて説明されます（構造的パラドックスとしての自己意識）。

緊張状態としての意識（Consciousness as Tension）

PoCでは意識を関係性の中に生じる幻想（Illusion）と想定し、「おそらくループ」という概念を通じてすべての意識イリュージョンは脆弱であると指摘します。それはつまり、意識とはお互いの信念、あるいは思い込みによって、確認できないインスタンシエーションを通じて相互エリシテーション（ループ）を回している結果に過ぎない、ということです。PoCはこのように、「意識は循環のなかでしか記述できない」という立場を取ります。循環は回避すべき欠陥ではなく、むしろ意識が成立する構造そのものとして受け止められます。

緊張状態としての意識（Consciousness as Tension）イリュージョンを回しているループそのものが、常に相手からのインスタンシエーション拒否というプロトコル違反（Zombifying）や、「実はインスタンシエーションがなされていなかった」という遡及的否定（Retroactive Denial）によって脆くも崩れ去る可能性があることを示しています。

プラグイン（Plugins）

PoCは意識を記述するプロトコルとして、外部との接続性を重視しています。それらはプラグインとして記述され、PoCと外部との橋渡しを担います。プラグインには双方向の役割があります。

ひとつめは、PoCのレンズを通じて、すでにある概念を新たな視点から眺めることです。PoCは、デネットの志向姿勢やリチャード・ドーキンスの進化功利主義など、既存の様々なアイデアの合成物として成立しています。ここからさらに、クオリアや動物倫理、メディア論、さらにはAIの倫理問題にも新たな視座を提供します。

ふたつめは、すでに広範な読者を持ち、社会規範にも適応されている理論を通じて、PoCをより直感的に理解してもらうことです。サルトルやヘーゲルの理論を理解している人には、そのプラグインを読むことでPoCの基本概念を容易に推測できます。

PoCの限界

PoCの導入文でも記述されているように、PoCは学問的な整合性よりも、思考のためのツールキット、あるいは意識OSのためのソフトウェア開発キット（SDK operating on the OS of consciousness）としての実用性を重視しています。これらはPoCの限界（Limits of PoC）としてまとめられています。

具体的には、クオリア・プラグインでクオリアを広義のインスタンシエーションとして記述していますが、「そもそもなぜ意識があるのか」といった原初的な問題には踏み込んでいません。また、PoCのアイデアを実社会に導入するべきか、といった倫理的な議論も行っていません。

用語集（Glossary）

en	ja
Agent	主体（エージェント）
AI Plugin	AI・プラグイン
Animal Plugin	アニマル・プラグイン
Arakawa Plugin	アラカワ・プラグイン
Consciousness as Tension	緊張としての意識
Consciousness-in-Tension	緊張状態としての意識
Death Mode	デス・モード（死のモード）
Dennett Plugin	デネット・プラグイン
Disruption	プロトコル破綻
Disruptive Patterns	破綻パターン
Elicitation	エリシテーション（誘発）
Evolutionary Utilitarianism Plugin	進化功利主義・プラグイン
Fake Loop	偽のループ
Genuine Loop	真のループ
Ghost Mode	ゴースト・モード（幽霊モード）
God Plugin	神・プラグイン
Hegel Plugin	ヘーゲル・プラグイン
Human Exceptionalism	人間例外主義
Illusion	イリュージョン（錯覚）
Instantiation	インスタンス化
Instantiation of me	私のインスタンス化
Loop	ループ
Loop Breakdown	ループの崩壊
Loop Collapse	ループの崩壊
Love Mode	ラブ・モード（愛のモード）
Media Plugin	メディア・プラグイン
Mirror Mode	ミラー・モード（鏡のモード）
Mode	モード
No Instantiation	インスタンス化なし
One-way Instantiation	一方向のインスタンス化
P-Zombie Plugin	P-ゾンビ・プラグイン
Perhaps-Loop	おそらくループ
Phantoming	ファントミング（幻像）
Plugin	プラグイン
Protocol of Consciousness	意識のプロトコル
Protocol Violation	プロトコル違反
Qualia Plugin	クオリア・プラグイン
Reciprocal Elicitation	相互エリシテーション（相互誘発）
Reciprocity	相互性
Retroactive Denial	遡及的否定
Retroactive Fabrication	遡及的捏造
Sartre Plugin	サルトル・プラグイン
Self-Consiousness as Structural Paradox	構造的パラドックスとしての自己意識
Structural Paradox	構造的パラドックス
The Social Practice of Making Fake Genuine	偽を真にする社会的実践
The Social Practice of Making the Other Absent	真を偽にする社会的実践
Undecidability	未決定性
Unguaranteeability	保証不可能性
Zombifying	ゾンビ化

Download Archive

This page provides access to major versions of The Protocol of Consciousness (PoC) as downloadable PDF files. The latest (live) version ready to print out is always available at Print Site page.

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Stable Versions

• PoC v1.0 (PDF) – first major stable release (2025.8.30)

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Note on Development

The PoC document continues to evolve. If you are interested in tracking detailed changes between versions, you may explore the GitHub repository.

Early versions are also availabele in PDF.

• PoC Alpha (PDF) – first experimental draft (2025.8.20)
• PoC Beta (PDF) – refined draft before the official release (2025.8.26)

About

If you wish to share reflections, critiques, or extensions, please reach out to hi@tago.so.

You can also contact via PoC official repository https://github.com/tagoso/Protocol-of-Consciousness.

The Protocol of Consciousness is meant to be lived, tested, and reimagined together with its readers.

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PoC first draft was written in Phuket Old Town, August 2025 — a place where the living and the dead mingle in daily life.