I am a new user (first post) and this post was edited with help from Grok (xAI), which I disclose up-front per site policy

Abstract
Modern theories treat consciousness as either (a) strongly emergent from complexity or (b) fundamental but with no identified physical mechanism (panpsychism, IIT, etc.). I propose a third option that is strictly reducible to pre-quantum physics: the existence of energy is definitionally identical to the existence of a non-zero potential difference (ΔV ≠ 0). Because a potential difference is required for any physical work, change, or information, the tension of that difference is proposed as the minimal phenomenal experience. Consciousness is therefore not something that “appears late”; it is the intrinsic metric of usable energy itself. The 30-page paper below derives thermodynamics, dissipative structures, the combination problem, and a quantitative spectrum of awareness from this single axiom. Relevance to LessWrong

Offers a crisp, falsifiable bridge between physics and phenomenology
Gives a thermodynamic reason why complex agency (including ASI) is favored by the second law
Directly touches alignment-relevant questions: if consciousness is literally the feeling of ΔV seeking resolution, reward functions may be more natural to specify than previously thought

Links (both permanent)

Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ET_HI06k0Pzyhh_NyU5pC1hE4recAdZ4/view?usp=sharing
Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/energy-delta-v-baljeet-atolia.pdf

Author background
Baljeet Kumar Atolia – no formal training in physics or philosophy, self-taught, currently unemployed in Punjab, India. I am posting anyway because the core axiom feels too simple to be wrong and I would rather be corrected publicly than delete another draft. Request to moderators / readers
If the axiom is internally incoherent or contradicts known physics, please point it out and I will retract or revise. If it survives first-pass scrutiny, I would appreciate pointers to formalize the few places that are still verbal. Thank you for reading.

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