C Fox, page 1/12 14 July 2025 Consciousness is Foundational: A post-materialistic, heuristic model of consciousness. Charles R. Fox, O.D., Ph.D. Overview Developed here is a new framework for understanding consciousness. After briefly reviewing the current physical production, reception, and panpsychism frameworks. Next, the principle underlying Gustav Fechner’s Psychophysics, the basis for western experimental psychology, are presented. These principles can also serve as the basis of a truly modern theory of consciousness. Such a modern theory would use the system independent formalism of psychophysics to interact with an independent, nonmaterial, foundational information domain of consciousness. Several analogic examples for a possible formal relation are offered and a heuristic model is suggested. The model suggests that consciousness is an information domain independent of any materialist domain and that any material, dynamic system can embody consciousness via a transform function. Further, individual consciousness experience will be different based on filtering due to structural and functional characteristic of the material system and the transform function. Lastly, the model is shown to be consistent with both contemporary science and the perennialism of human creation presented in major human religions and philosophies. Introduction The space-time dimension is a conceptual model, largely developed by Einstein as part of his theory of relativity to explains how the universe works. In physics, at least the macro physics of our experiential domain, space and time are foundational. This is true in the natural sciences in general. An important aspect of space-time is that objects are located in it, objects ranging from the smallest atom to humans to things beyond humans. We will set aside the sub-atomic world for this discussion; it might be relevant, but it appears to run by different rules. Consciousness is seen by many to be somehow related to some of these objects. We must consider the question of how this version of consciousness, so intimately tied to space and time, arises. A major issue with trying to understand consciousness is that the term is used in widely different senses (Dennett, 1991). In a medical context it is often used as a synonym for wakefulness,