Why the Unfinished Keeps Returning: Canxianization and the Dynamics of Conscious Priority

TL;DR

This paper introduces Canxianization, a process explaining why certain conscious contents repeatedly return due to self-relevance and closure resistance, distinct from emotional or memory effects.

Contribution

It proposes a new theoretical framework for understanding recurrent conscious contents, including indices to differentiate productive from pathological recurrence.

Findings

Canxianization involves attribution to the self-world boundary and value marking.

Latent canxian strength differs from observed recurrence.

Cold Canxianization is driven by structural incompleteness, not affective arousal.

Abstract

Some conscious contents disappear after access; others return repeatedly, long after their triggering conditions have ceased. We propose Canxianization as the process by which a perturbation becomes closure-resistant self-relevant unfinishedness and thereby acquires recurrent conscious priority. The theory distinguishes this phenomenon from emotional arousal, memory strength, the Zeigarnik effect, curiosity, prediction error, and intrusive thought. A perturbation becomes canxianized when it is attributed to the self-world boundary, value-marked, blocked from causal or action closure, and metacognitively coupled to the self-model. We distinguish latent canxian strength from observed conscious recurrence, and introduce a Recurrent Priority Index and a Canxian Update Index to separate productive from pathological recurrence. Cold Canxianization, recurrence driven by structural incompleteness rather than affective arousal, is identified as a critical discriminant. Reset Resistance and Stake Transfer tests are proposed for artificial systems. Canxianization is not memory persistence; it is failed self-world repair. The unfinished does not merely remain. When it concerns the self and resists closure, it returns.