Two readings
Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness can be read in two distinct ways.
The first records the distribution of ideas, influence, and attention. On this reading, physicalist and mechanistic programs occupy much of the map's populated territory, while non-physicalist and anomalous-state programs occupy smaller but meaningful regions. This reading is useful as intellectual geography.
The second asks what these positions have actually placed under demanding empirical test. When CSTP is applied across the same landscape, the pattern changes. Some philosophically developed positions do not clear the gate at all, because their central claims forbid no observation. Others offer a way to fail but have never had it tested. A smaller number have produced prospective predictions subjected to blinding, replication, or adversarial design.
These two readings measure different things: one tracks conceptual development and attention; the other tracks empirical exposure under consistent rules. A theory may be philosophically rich yet evidentially young. A research program may be empirically strong on mechanism or access while remaining silent on why experience exists. CSTP does not collapse these distinctions. It makes them visible.
This application of CSTP across fifty positions and research programs shows that sophisticated explanation is common while severe, prospective testing of central claims about consciousness remains uncommon.
Fifty positions, each scored against one standard fixed before any of them was read. Continuous Being Theory is entry 51 and is counted separately.
Twenty-five of the fifty have never been tested at all — twenty-one offer a way to fail and have never had it tested, and four offer no way to fail. Of the nineteen positions standing at level 3 or above, two reach the top of the ladder.
Physicalist programs generally perform best when their claims concern neural correlates, access, reportability, or functional organization. These are real achievements. However, the same programs frequently bracket or postpone the phenomenal question. Non-physicalist programs more often address that question directly, but most remain supported primarily by argument or retrospective fit rather than by prospective tests capable of clear failure.
Global Neuronal Workspace and Integrated Information Theory reached the sixth level by entering a collaboration designed with their rivals. Neither came through intact. In one case a stated falsifier was looked for and found absent.
This is the part of the result most easily misread in both directions. It is not a finding that the physicalist programs are correct. It is a finding that they are the two that submitted to a test severe enough to damage them — and that the damage is on the record because the test existed.
This is not offered as a final judgment on any individual theory. It is a description of the current distribution of empirical exposure in the slice examined here.
Positions reflect the published record as of 11 October 2026. Theories advance.