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.