The Structural Dependency Pyramid represents Victor Wyld’s Scrutinized Awareness Theory as a hierarchy of structural dependency rather than a chronological sequence.
The figure shows that higher-order conditions depend upon the architecture beneath them. Scrutinized awareness is therefore not treated as an isolated capacity added to an otherwise complete system.
Instead, it depends upon a structure in which awareness, implication, carrying, participation, and identity are related through increasingly demanding conditions of continuation.
What the figure represents
A structural dependency is different from a temporal stage. The diagram does not claim that every element appears in a simple moment-by-moment sequence.
Rather, each higher level presupposes conditions established below it. Participation depends upon implication being carried. Identity depends upon a history of continued carrying. Scrutinized awareness depends upon awareness having become consequential within that participational structure.
The pyramid therefore emphasizes that the threshold described by Scrutinized Awareness Theory is architectural: consciousness depends not merely upon what information is present, but upon the structural relation in which that information stands to the participant’s continuation.
From: On the Question of Scrutinized Awareness by Victor Wyld.