Poznanski’s Processual Relational Geometry: Self-Intending Transscale Consciousness

Key Takeaways

• Core Claim: Consciousness is the intrinsic realization of physically embodied transscale ontophysical continuity.
• How It Works: Generative constraints stabilize relational unfolding through reflexive-projective and self-intending closure.
• Distinguishing Idea: Physical and constitutive realization reciprocally realize one basis, replacing emergence and supervenience.
• Physical Proposal: Embedded quasipolaritonic dynamics in cortical neuropil microcavities provide the hypothesized biological realization.
• Open Issue: The physical mechanism remains unconfirmed, and “intrinsic realization” may redescribe rather than fully explain phenomenality.

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Mathematical neuroscientist Roman Poznanski’s Processual Relational Geometry (PRG) holds that phenomenal consciousness is the intrinsic realization of a physically embodied, transscale continuity of relational organization. Consciousness is not generated by computation, neural integration, biological complexity, or quantum activity considered separately; it occurs when physical realization and constitutive realization become reciprocally realized manifestations of one ontophysical continuity, stabilized through self-intending projective closure. Phenomenality is the intrinsically realized manifestation of this conscious actuality, while perception, cognition, memory, affect, and bodily regulation are downstream dispositional expressions rather than its constitutive source (Poznanski, 2026).

From Dynamic Organicity to Constitutive Realization

PRG substantially reformulates Poznanski’s earlier Dynamic Organicity Theory (DOT). DOT described consciousness within type-B materialism as arising from embodied, quantum-delocalized intrinsic information in a living negentropic brain. It emphasized multiscale complexity, changing boundary conditions, holarchical organization, self-referential pathways, and a threshold at which the functionality of multiscale complexity exceeds that attributable to maximal structural complexity (Chalmers, 2003; Poznanski, 2024). The current Landscape entry accordingly presents DOT through quasi-strong emergence, panexperiential materialism, dynamic organicity, and self-intending projection.

PRG retains physical embodiment, negentropic organization, quantum-biological effects, intrinsic information, and self-directed relational dynamics, but revises their explanatory status. Consciousness no longer emerges from dynamic organicity or increasing complexity. Dynamic organicity becomes the substrate-dependent medium in which the relevant physical processes occur; self-reference becomes intrinsic reflexivity; quantum-delocalized information becomes non-Shannon intrinsic information embodied through relational organization; and the earlier complexity threshold is replaced by a critical relational-organizational transition establishing reciprocal realization. PRG thus moves from emergentist materialism to “constitutive essentialism” grounded in nonstandard constitutive physicalism (Poznanski, 2026).

PRG distinguishes physical realization—the substrate-specific embodiment of a system—from constitutive realization—its intrinsically informational organization. At the critical transition, these become reciprocally realized manifestations of a common constitutive basis. Neither is a separate substance or domain, and neither alone exhausts that basis. Consciousness is constituted rather than caused by this organization, departing both from conventional supervenience and from biological naturalism understood as neurobiology causing consciousness (Searle, 2017; Poznanski, 2026).

Transscale Ontophysical Continuity

The constitutive basis is “physically embodied transscale ontophysical continuity.” “Ontophysical” denotes the relational organizational dynamics through which this continuity is constituted and maintained. “Transscale” is stronger than “multiscale”: multiscale organization coordinates processes at several spatial or temporal levels, whereas transscale continuity persists across successive regimes of realization without being localizable to any one regime. Consciousness is therefore not situated exclusively in neurons, networks, electromagnetic fields, quantum events, or a global computational state. It is the coherent continuation of constitutive organization across changing physical configurations.

Transscale unity is not identity among local processes, uniform synchronization, or a continuous field. It is persistent relational coherence despite continual local reconfiguration. The position resembles spatiotemporal approaches that emphasize continuity across neural regimes, but PRG gives this continuity a constitutive rather than merely dynamical role (Northoff, 2024). Once constitutive organization satisfies the self-consistency condition of reciprocal realization, it attains “intrinsic realization.” Conscious actuality is this intrinsic realization; phenomenality is its intrinsic manifestation. Objective science may characterize physical and constitutive organization, but, following the challenge posed by Reason’s no-supervenience theorem, Poznanski argues that objective description cannot ontologically exhaust intrinsic realization (Reason, 2024; Poznanski, 2026).

Relational Geometry and Intrinsic Information

“Geometry” in PRG does not mean physical space, metric distance, topology, or the shape of consciousness. Quasipolaritonic Process Geometry (QPG) is a pre-topological, non-metrical, non-manifold formalism specifying which relational configurations are admissible. Rather than describing states evolving through time, it formalizes generative constraints on possible relational unfolding. States and networks are abstractions from stabilized organization, not ontological primitives. PRG therefore differs from Rovelli’s relational quantum mechanics: it does not interpret quantum states relationally but makes relational organization prior to state-based quantum description (Rovelli, 2021; Poznanski, 2026).

Intrinsic information is neither Shannon information nor representation. It is the observer-independent dispositional organization of relational unfolding—the structured tendencies delimiting which continuations are admissible. QPG specifies the constraints under which such organization can be constituted. The effective term Q* modulates admissibility toward coherent relational regimes; Qneg supplies a negentropic or “thermocoherent” bias favoring viable, lower-entropy organization; and relational Green’s functions distribute compatibility constraints across successive regimes. These constructs are not intended to encode content or select predetermined outcomes. They bias and stabilize relational compatibility while preserving indeterminacy.

This reframes neural integration as closure. Integration suggests combining separate information into a unified whole. Closure instead denotes a self-maintaining relational regime whose admissible continuations mutually constrain one another, preserve transscale continuity, and acquire directional coherence.

Self-Intending Closure and Phenomenality

The Self-Intending Projective Framework (SIPF) specifies how relational organization becomes intrinsically intentional and conscious. Its starting point is intrinsic reflexivity, which is not reflective self-awareness, symbolic self-reference, recursion, or a self-model. It is the pre-representational capacity of relational unfolding to constrain its own continuation under generative constraints.

Reflexive-projective operationalization progressively biases admissible continuations toward coherent regimes. When this organization becomes persistently self-maintaining, reflexive-projective closure is achieved, and intrinsically informational dispositions acquire directional coherence as intrinsic intentionality. “Intentionality” here does not primarily mean semantic aboutness; it means that the organization sustains and projectively constrains its own possible continuation. Self-intending projective closure is the culminating stabilization through which intrinsic intentionality remains persistently organized and constitutive organization attains intrinsic realization (Poznanski, 2025, 2026).

The sequence is therefore: physically embodied transscale continuity; relational unfolding; constitutive organization under QPG constraints; reflexive-projective operationalization; reflexive-projective closure; intrinsic intentionality; self-intending projective closure; conscious actuality; and phenomenality as its intrinsic manifestation. Perception, cognition, memory, affect, and action are subsequent dispositional expressions. PRG thereby reverses the explanatory order of computational and cognitive theories: consciousness does not result from cognition or representation; those functions express an already intrinsically realized organization.

Quantum-Biological Embodiment and Testability

Embedded Quantum Physicalism (EQP) names the domain in which the constitutive basis is physically embodied. EQP is not a second ontology and is not reducible to standard quantum states. In the biological brain, Poznanski proposes that cortical neuropil microcavities provide confined environments for embedded quasipolaritonic dynamics—hybrid electromagnetic–matter excitations sustained through interactions among confined fields, molecular networks, aqueous biological media, and quantum-delocalized electronic processes (Poznanski et al., 2022, 2024, 2025). Dynamic organicity supplies the living substrate-specific conditions. Quasipolaritonic dynamics are not themselves conscious; they physically realize the relational organization whose intrinsic realization constitutes consciousness.

The proposal does not localize consciousness in microtubules, individual quasiparticles, biophotons, or a freely propagating electromagnetic field. Local quasipolaritonic excitations are hypothesized to form transient, phase-consistent coupling regimes across nearby neuropil microcavities. The theory predicts indirect signatures including phase-consistent quasipolaritonic coordination, Q*-admissible and Qneg-biased organization, resistance to incoherent drift, low-entropy relational regimes, and transient quasipolaritonic spike-like dynamics. Poznanski proposes ultrafast spectroscopy, quantum-sensitive optical imaging, and high-resolution microscopy as possible methods, while acknowledging that embedded quasipolaritonic dynamics have not been demonstrated in living cortical neuropil (Poznanski, 2026).

PRG allows only constrained multiple realizability. A nonbiological system could be conscious in principle, but computational equivalence or functional simulation would be insufficient. It would need a substrate capable of sustaining admissible transscale relational unfolding, reciprocal realization, intrinsic intentionality, and self-intending projective closure. The framework’s principal unresolved issue is both empirical and explanatory: even support for quasipolaritonic dynamics would not by itself show that reciprocal realization constitutes phenomenality. PRG’s contribution is a detailed ontophysical sequence connecting embodiment, relational organization, intrinsic intentionality, and conscious actuality; its vulnerability is that “intrinsic realization” may designate the phenomenal transition without yet explaining why the transition must be phenomenal.

Constitutive Essentialist Ontology

PRG advances what Poznanski calls a “constitutive essentialist ontology” in which the constitutive basis—physically embodied transscale ontophysical continuity—is ontologically primary. Consciousness is neither an emergent property of objectively describable physical processes nor an ontologically separate mental substance, but the intrinsic realization of constitutive organization grounded in this constitutive basis. Constitutive organization, rather than physical objects, computational functions, or representational states, is therefore the primary explanatory category through which conscious actuality and phenomenality are understood.

Philosophically, PRG is grounded in a nonstandard constitutive physicalism. It rejects both reductive and standard non-reductive physicalism by holding that constitutive realization and physical realization are reciprocally realized manifestations of the same constitutive basis, rather than separate ontological domains or supervenient levels. The physical is therefore indispensable to realization, but objective physical description does not ontologically exhaust the constitutive basis because it does not characterize intrinsic realization. In this sense, PRG remains a physicalist framework while advancing a novel constitutive account of consciousness grounded in constitutive essentialism.

Placement

Poznanski stresses that PRG is not standard Non-Reductive Physicalism, and this distinction is important. PRG is a physicalist theory, but to place it in any of the Materialism subcategories would distort its essence. Thus, highlighting this caveat, PRG’s self-described nonstandard constitutive physicalism fits Non-Reductive Physicalism more closely than any other Landscape category. Physical embodiment is indispensable; no immaterial substance, autonomous phenomenal field, universal consciousness, or proto-phenomenal property is postulated. Yet consciousness is not ontologically exhausted by objective physical description. Poznanski explicitly states that PRG’s “nonstandard constitutive physicalism” rejects reductive explanation, standard supervenience, functionalism, computationalism, and emergence from objectively describable complexity.

References

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