Ring/Bank Theory of Consciousness
A geometric, rhythm/event framework proposing consciousness emerges from a bootstrapping process as the brain (as a recurrent neural net) reads high-level pulsations first into 0–2D manifolds and secondly into ongoing 3D content in a modeling or story space
The Ring/Bank Theory, originated by Brad Caldwell, proposes that consciousness arises as the ongoing interpretation of high-level rhythms/events into lower dimensional rings or frames and then into the meaningful content they are believed to touch or reveal (by conscious top-down, and by unconscious bottom-up, contributions). This theory provides a mechanistic account of how subjective experience emerges from brain rallying and intelligent use of priors and stimuli to implement behavior that honors goals.
Core Principles
High-Level Microphone
Consciousness boots up (and continue to float), not from signals in primary cortices, but from a high-level signal crafted largely by unconsious processes. The signal remains about one high-level thing at a time. For example, the signal may be entirely about the amplitude fluctuations caused by your heartbeat and slight body throb for a second. Then it may switch to being about a task you recall needed to be done. The signals are ready-made to be interpreted into singular volumetric experience. This is thought to be what binds consciousness into coherent wholistic processing. A huge multitude of low-level signals are considered to craft this singular mic signal. All that must be added is interpretation to expand from temporal signals to low-D ringframes to self-consistent 3D content.
Rhythmic/Event Processing
The brain processes information in discrete cycles (2-13 Hz) or events (millisecond resolution), each cycle or bin headered off at the start by a ringframe keyframe. In parallel, what these ringframes are about (mic voice) may change at an independent, but often slower, rate (0.1-5 Hz).
Geometric Foundation
Consciousness is incipiently temporo-geometric, with experiences interpreted first as low-dimensional manifolds (0D point 'tracer', 1D rings, 2D frames) in the brain's modeling space. From this most incipient 'union set,' further deduction reveals, outwards from the union set, mutually exclusive 3D schema volumes, such as the brain's model of reality, imagination, and time flow.
Spatial Addressing
Conscious content is addressed spatially through a dynamically updating union set manifold, marrying a voxel or set of voxels between "Bank Schema" (stores rigid 1D/2D manifolds on a roughly cube/sphere structure), real schema, imaginal schema, and (sometimes) a time schema.
Spatial Cyclism
The Union Set exhibits a continuum from interrupted to continuous phasic modes. In phasic mode, spatial cyclism manifests through three trajectory patterns:
- Ring Trajectory: A 0–2D tracer follows repeated 1D paths (circular, square, or V-shaped)
- Nested Ring Trajectory: A 0D tracer rapidly orbits a torus minor circle while advancing along the major circle, creating a toroidal helix in continuous phasic mode or a rolodex-like card sequence in discontinuous phasic (compressed) mode
- 3D Spirographic Trajectory: Geometric shells (sphere/cube/cylinder/cone) trace spirographic paths within larger shells
Central Proposition: While metacognition (experiencer) is a fairly continuous stream, ringframes are a series of discrete geometric "snapshots" that are rhythmically-generated or event-generated. The continuous meaningful content they are assumed/interpreted to "touch" (scratch-to-reveal) is called Paint (conscious and unconscious help to interpret).
Key Mechanisms
The Mic: Time-Division Multiple Access
Attention switches (0.1-5 times per second) between different sensory and cognitive "voices" in an interrupt-style processing system similar to computer IRQ (Interrupt Request) or TDMA (Time-Division Multiple Access). This explains why we can only fully attend to one type of information at a time.
Ringframes: Geometric Building Blocks
Ringframes are the fundamental geometric structures of consciousness:
Rings (0-1D Manifolds)
Lower-dimensional geometric representations that trace paths through experiential space, often following convoluted circular or square trajectories, forming the "header keyframes" at the beginning of bins of conscious experience. Phasic mode intruduces a smear of the bin, making a ~100 ms cycle into infinitesimal mini-bins–each 1º bin would be tiny (less than 1 ms).
Frames (2D Manifolds)
Two-dimensional surfaces that capture more complete spatial information, forming the "header keyframes" at the beginning of bins of conscious experience.
Ringframe Generation Process
Conceptual representation of how ringframes are printed into experiential space
Bank Schema: The Geometric Library
The Bank Schema serves as both generator and storage for spatial experiences:
Bank Schema showing concentric geometric structures with asymmetric anchors
The Bank is organized around concentric geometric structures (spheres, cubes) with asymmetric anchors (like a "broken drinking glass") which incidentally enforces singular orientation. The broken glass being offset is likely due to the lifelong preference for right-handed (and right-experiential-volume) use of tools, phones, drinking glasses, etc., leaving a permanent bias on the bank structure in the rightward direction. While the bank can move/3D-rotate to these objects on the right, it shows some laziness/hysteresis, such that repeated off-centerness in experiential volume likely results in the off-centeredness being reflected in the bank.
Postdictive Interpretation
1. A filtered/high-level microphone signal is offered up for interpretation. 2. Simultaneously, the bank schema prints static geometric snapshots (ringframes [at the moment, they equal the Union Set]) that immediately flow in Time Schema (no longer the Union Set), creating a timestamped record of the stream of rhythm/events. 3. What the mic/ringframes are about is deduced as 3D content, separate from the ringframe system.
3D Spirograph Mode
A submode of spatial cyclism (in phasic mode), where the bank schema moves as through it were the rotor in a larger cavity stator (likely a fainter copy of the bank), using the sphere, cube, cylinder, or cone shell within the bank as the instantiated portion of the bank. Three primary types are proposed:
Cone Spirograph
A dynamic (radius of stator or rotor can change) mode of refreshing modeling space that behaves as a spirograph made of two cones (or close to this).
Cylinder Spirograph
A dynamic (radius of stator or rotor can change) mode of refreshing modeling space that behaves as a spirograph made of two cynlinder shells.
Sphere Spirograph
A dynamic (radius of stator or rotor can change) mode of refreshing modeling space that behaves as a spirograph made of two sphere shells.
Neural Evidence & Correlations
While the neural correlates of the ring/bank theory have not been conclusively found, it is thought likely that some sort of distributed frequency-encoding and/or sparse-encoding are at the heart of the union set behavior. 2 Hz pulses in rats under Ketamine appear to align with the '2 Hz reality frames' (one to two per heartbeat) in reports from phenomenology of hemp and salvia sedation.
Entrainment Phenomena
External rhythmic stimuli can entrain brain oscillations, creating predictable conscious experiences. For example, strobe lights at specific frequencies (8-13 Hz) can produce "Orbital Strikes" where the Bank's rotation phase-locks to the external rhythm. However, entrainment methods do not create a hyperpolarized brain state, and therefore do not knock out fast (gamma band) processing. Therefore, this entrainment is qualitatively unlike the embodied synesthetic ringframes experienced clearly in sedation.
Modes of the Union Set
The theory stresses that the behavior of the Union Set is dynamic, with common modes noted below:
| Mode | Description | Experience |
|---|---|---|
| Phasic Mode | Continuous printing with 0D tracer following periodic trajectory | Tracer or tracer arm/plane following smooth, continuous ring (helix in time schema) |
| (Compressed) Discontinuous Phasic Mode | Shortened active phases with extended inter-cycle intervals | Lock-washer phasic with gap between |
| Interrupt Mode | Discrete printing of complete manifolds with temporal gaps | Staccato-like "snapshots" or touchpoints of events/rhythm |
Comparison with Other Theories
| Theory | Primary Mechanism | Contrast with Ring/Bank |
|---|---|---|
| Global Workspace | Information access and broadcast | Ring/Bank specifies geometric format of workspace content |
| Predictive Processing | Prediction error minimization | Ring/Bank emphasizes postdictive processing with geometric constraints |
| Integrated Information | Information integration (Φ) | Ring/Bank provides mechanistic account of how integration occurs spatially |
| Attention Schema | Model of attention processes | Ring/Bank compatible - specifies geometric implementation of attention |
Experimental Support
Ketamine Studies: 2 Hz Pulse
Research found 2 Hz pulsing caused by HCN1 channels in hyperpolarized pyramidal neurons in layer 5 of retrosplenial cortex entraining entire cortex, correlating with 2 Hz 'reality frames' reported in altered states1.
FM-PCA Rings: Cyclic Motor Task
Studies discovered frequency modulation PCA rings (~1–3 Hz, locking to rate of hand pedal cycle speed) in monkey motor cortex during rhythmic behaviors, showing neural basis for ring-like processing2. Phenomenal reports indicate rings sometimes lock to cyclic behavior such as the walk cycle. It is possible this is the same ring, or that a similar ring method is used.
FM-PCA Rings: Tempo Task
In medial premotor cortex, external and internal tempo tasks showed a correlation between 0º phase of frequency-modulation based PCA rings (~1–2 Hz, locking to tempo), and onset of next metronome or imagined beat3. Phenomenal reports indicate interrupt-mode ringframes often print to the beat or notes of a song. In this case, the phenomenal rings don't align in phase or mode, but they do in beat-locking and frequency-locking (tempo), with observed PCA rings.
AM-PCA Rings: Cortical Gamma Rings
Found that whole cortex recorded by EEG alternated between sketching-like and ring-like modes, apparently to music. The rings were found to be 5.15 Hz invariant to song tempo4.
Clinical Implications
The theory suggests novel explanations for various clinical conditions:
Paint Anesthesia
Partial loss of 3D volumetric experience while maintaining temporal and event awareness, possibly due to general reduction in sampling or orchestrating rate (loss of gamma power due to hyperpolarization).
Pathological Conditions
This reduction in sampling/orchestration rate (loss of gamma power due to hyperpolarization) could underlie various perceptual and cognitive abnormalities. Many conditions such as Parkinson's, seizures, hydrocephalus, and ALS demonstrate fairly low-frequency bodily movements, as if entrained to a low frequency, or lacking sufficient dopamine to make conscious adjustments more rapidly (the hyperpolarization causes longer bouts of refractoriness in neurons after each frame).
Key Insight: The Ring/Bank Theory provides a geometric vocabulary for describing conscious experience that bridges phenomenology and mechanism, offering testable predictions about the spatiotemporal dynamics of consciousness.
Current Status and Future Directions
While the Ring/Bank Theory provides a comprehensive mechanistic framework, it remains a developing theory requiring further empirical validation. Current research focuses on:
- Identifying specific neural correlates of mic/ringframe generation
- Understanding compile time vs worldsim runtime, for each 'bin' of experience, when the two are experienced serially
- Running millisecond-accuracy EEG/fNIRs in sedated state
References
- Vesuna, Deisseroth, Kauvar, et al. (2020). Deep Posteromedial Cortical Rhythm in Dissociation. Nature, 586(7827), 87-94. Retrieved from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7553818/ ↩
- Saxena, S., Russo, A. A., Cunningham, J., & Churchland, M. M. (2022). Motor cortex activity across movement speeds is predicted by network-level strategies for generating muscle activity. Neuron, 110(5), 839-855. Retrieved from churchland.zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu ↩
- Gámez, J., Mendoza, G., Prado, L., Betancourt, A., & Merchant, H. (2019). The amplitude in periodic neural state trajectories underlies the tempo of rhythmic tapping. PLOS Biology, 17(5), e3000054. Retrieved from journals.plos.org/plosbiology ↩
- Caldwell, B. (2025). Cortical PCA: Exploring Potential Tempo and Transient Locking to Musical Stimuli. DeSci DOI: 10.62891/01481439 ↩
Continue the Exploration
The Ring/Bank Theory represents a novel approach to understanding consciousness through geometric and rhythm/event principles. To learn more about specific mechanisms or explore the extensive terminology of this theory, visit the Consciousness Dictionary or reach out to discuss at caldwbr@gmail.com.