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.