Abstract

In this article, I argue that sentience—the ontological capacity for consciousness—in humans and non-human primates arises through radical emergence rather than from neuronal structural elements, microtubules, or neural computation. Drawing on the presence of neuropil microcavities that sustain quantum-optical coherence within microscale cortical crevices, I propose that these microspaces function as the quantum-geometric loci at which physical quantum coherence is transformed into phenomenality. Under Embedded Quantum Physicalism (EQP), this transformation occurs only when the quantum potential geometry (QPG) that organizes these coherences provides a functional geometry of quantum-optical curvature, which then undergoes self-referential closure. This closure constitutes ontological phenomenality—sentience in its non-experiential, pre-cognitive mode of being. Experiential disclosure arises only when this ontological phenomenality is rendered reflexive through self-intending projective closure (SIPC). SIPC does not add content but introduces a perspectival interior, thereby converting pre-experiential phenomenality into actual phenomenal experience. In this interpretation, phenomenality is foundational: it grounds sentience and establishes the conditions for consciousness. This framework suggests that consciousness may be a relatively recent and phylogenetically restricted evolutionary development, consistent with evidence from neuroanatomy, rapid axonal termination (RAT) experiments, and quantum-optical mechanisms.