On the subject part I: what is the subject?

The aim of this article is to provide a rigorous scientific and philosophical foundation for the analysis of what subjective being does in the objective world. It analyzes subjectivity as the awareness and agency of animated organisms. Wherever an organism has awareness and agency objectively, it is argued, this is experienced subjectively also following a natural law of emergence of subjectivity from the object or physical world. Performing work on the object to sustain their ongoing emergence, individual organisms scaffold themselves into structures that can emerge “super-agents” of further increased subjectivity. An increase of subjective awareness and agency, this article thus concludes, is real in the world. Without claiming that there is anything mystical like a “life force” or that there is a universal increase, it is argued that subjectivity must thus be taken seriously as a force for change in the objective world. The subject performs work on the object, which is an undeniable real-world impact. This awareness turned into agency, it is argued, is always experienced internally by the organisms that perform this work as an urge to perform this work. Subjectivity, hence, cannot be reduced to an epiphenomenon, even if fully accounted for and determined by natural laws.