Consciousness as Displacement Self-Knowledge: Qualia, the Hard Problem, and the Ground State of Experience

The hard problem of consciousness is resolved by identifying consciousness with the organism's real-time self-referential model of its own displacement state D(xi). Qualia are displacement states experienced from the inside: pain = D(xi_tissue) experienced; pleasure = -dD/dt experienced. Connects to Integrated Information Theory (Phi_IIT = D_KL from factored ground state), Global Workspace Theory (consciousness = broadcast of displacement state), and predictive coding (prediction error = epistemic displacement).

Blindsight, anesthesia, and sleep explained. Moral implications for animal consciousness derived formally.