Author: Soto, Armando | ORCID: 0009-0003-8095-6861 Version: Preprint v1.6 | Date: May 2026 Series: Unified Informational Dynamics Theory — Applied Extension Series
TSMDT proposes that motivation is not a property added to living, cognitive, or artificial systems from outside. Motivation begins where trace-bearing expression carries an unresolved relation to what it is becoming. The paper defines reactive provision, sensation, feeling, and emotion as progressive thresholds of one mechanism: sustained differential registration maintaining inferential presence on a requisite state across the duration needed for closure-directed response. The operational architecture is Trace-Conditioned Modulative Orientation (TCMO). Mind is not the source of this hierarchy — mind is what this hierarchy produces when state-holding becomes recursive, field-integrated, and symbolically developed.
Core reversal: Sensation, feeling, and emotion ascend from expression dynamics. They do not descend from mind.
| Platform | Link |
|---|---|
| OSF | osf.io/vsjrf |
| Zenodo | 10.5281/zenodo.20480277 |
| PhilPapers | philpapers.org/rec/SOTTMD |
| 01_TSMDT_Preprint_v1_6.pdf |