Tidal Emergence (TE)

TE is a forward-looking control theory: multiple specialist processes propose actions (“ideas”), a central Comparator gates and selects, and internal state (“tides”) modulates what becomes globally available. It’s engineered to be testable: no grand claims, just behaviours and telemetry.

The TE idea in brief

TE treats consciousness-style control as emergent, selective availability rather than a monolithic faculty. Proto-Minds (PMs) handle perception, memory, and body signals; a Comparator gates and broadcasts one “winning” idea at a time; a tide-line controls when ideas are visible system-wide. Memory Bundles (MBs) provide context and chaining.

What TE is (and isn’t)

Is: a practical architecture you can falsify with tasks, perturbations, and logs.
Isn’t: a metaphysical claim about qualia. We measure control, integration, and behaviour.

How we test it

Masking/ignition — global access timing and thresholds.
Interruption → resumption — chaining via MBs under load.
Perturb-and-measure — small nudges; we log a simple complexity delta (Lempel–Ziv) as telemetry.

TE-Sim (minimal system)

TE-Sim is a small, closed-loop agent used to verify the theory’s mechanisms. It logs a dozen internal signals at 50 Hz, supports tiny graded perturbations, and reports pre-registered metrics. We treat complexity measures as engineering telemetry, not as a “consciousness score”.

Current status

Stable 3D propagation and gating.

Logger + reproducible plots (seed / build / config stamped).

Simple perturbation protocol (e.g., brief comparator attenuation) + sham runs.

Public preprint of the TE model.

Short TE-Sim methods/results note with a small “repro pack” (logs + plot script).

Video walkthroughs (data → figures) — links will appear here.

About Michael Snoswell

Contract IT project manager, developer, counsellor, researcher, and long-time explorer of mind/AI questions. TE grew from hands-on work building self-sustaining agents in the 1990s, early neural-network applications, counselling study, and broad reading across neuroscience, psychology, and modern AI.

The aim isn’t to declare victory on consciousness; it’s to build a compact system with falsifiable predictions that anyone can probe via tasks, perturbations, and telemetry.