Abstract

This essay introduces the central argument developed more fully in the later version of The Coherence Threshold. It outlines the principle that awareness begins when the internal organization of a system reinforces itself faster than it is disrupted by external forces. Through examples from physics, biology, and cognition, it describes how coherence allows information to circulate in a self-stabilizing way, producing the first trace of self-observation. While the later version extends these ideas to lived experience and meaning, this paper presents the original formulation of the concept and its foundational reasoning.