I created an 11-level model of consciousness. I’d like people to try to break it.

I’m not a philosopher or a psychologist. I came up with this model while thinking about my own development and how the way we understand ourselves and the world seems to change over time.
I’m not claiming this is scientifically proven. I’m interested in whether the model is logically useful and whether any part of it could eventually be tested.
The basic idea is that consciousness develops by expanding the scope and depth of what a person genuinely wants to understand.
Importantly, this is not an IQ scale. Someone can be extremely intelligent and still be at a lower level, while someone with average intelligence could potentially reach a higher level. It also isn’t a morality scale. A person can have a high level of consciousness and still use what they understand for bad purposes.
The 11 levels
Self and basic needs
Food, water, safety, comfort, physical needs. The main concern is essentially: What do I need?
Self and immediate environment
Exploring the surrounding world and becoming interested in what is directly experienced.
Self, close people and the world
Awareness expands toward other people, relationships and things considered worth paying attention to.
Desires and ambition
The person develops personal goals and wants things they don’t currently have: relationships, friendship, money, status, experiences, etc.
Values
The person develops and adopts their own values and principles. They don’t simply follow rules because they were taught them.
Understanding the foundations
The person starts questioning why their values and beliefs are correct.
For example: instead of simply thinking “stealing is wrong”, they ask why is stealing actually wrong?
Understanding oneself
The focus turns toward consciousness itself.
Why do I have these emotions? Why do I think this way? Why do I have these questions? How does my mind work? What mechanisms influence me without my conscious control?
The desire to understand everything
The person’s curiosity becomes universal. When they encounter something, they genuinely want to understand why it exists and works the way it does.
For example, seeing sand might lead to questions about why it is there, why it has that composition, how it formed, why matter behaves that way.
Seeing an airplane might lead to questions about how it flies, why the physics allows it to fly, how humans discovered those principles, and so on.
The important part is not knowing everything. It’s the genuine internal need to understand everything one encounters.
The limits of human knowledge
This is where the model becomes much harder to evaluate.
Level 9 would mean an exceptionally broad and deep understanding of reality, approaching the maximum that one human consciousness could potentially integrate and understand during a single lifetime.
It isn’t necessarily about knowing the most facts. Someone could know relatively little but understand the underlying relationships between things extremely deeply.
This level is therefore highly subjective and difficult to verify externally.
Leonardo da Vinci would be one possible historical candidate, although I don’t claim that he objectively reached level 9.
Beyond human cognition
A hypothetical level in which the limitations of ordinary human cognition are somehow transcended.
I don’t claim that humans can actually reach this level. In my model, it may be impossible for a human being to reach it within one lifetime.
This is where the model becomes metaphysical rather than scientifically testable.
Absolute knowledge
The hypothetical endpoint.
Not simply “knowing more than level 10”, but reaching a state where there is no longer anything left to understand. The distinction between knowing and not knowing would effectively disappear.
I don’t consider this achievable by humans at all.
Religious figures such as Jesus could be used as examples within a theological interpretation of this idea, but that is an example, not evidence that level 11 objectively exists.
Some important rules of the model
Higher levels don’t erase lower ones.
Someone at level 8 can still care about money, relationships, food, their values, and their own emotions. They don’t suddenly stop being human.
Likewise, someone at level 7 can still question whether their values are correct. That doesn’t automatically make them level 8.
The level represents the dominant scope of the person’s genuine cognitive drive, not every question they ever ask.
A person can also jump between levels relatively quickly. The model doesn’t assume that someone must spend years on each level.
Someone might spend decades at level 5 and then experience a major change that moves them rapidly toward 6 or 7.
Another important point
A person’s belief about their own level doesn’t determine their actual level.
Someone at level 7 could sincerely believe:
“I understand everything. I’m level 10.”
That doesn’t make them level 10.
In fact, realizing that you don’t understand everything can itself be an important part of developing further.
The model therefore treats consciousness as something that has to be judged by the actual internal drive toward understanding, not by self-description.
What I’m unsure about
This is where I’d really like criticism.
Are these actually distinct levels, or am I just creating arbitrary categories?
Does consciousness really develop in this general direction?
Can someone skip levels entirely?
Can the levels be measured indirectly?
Is level 9 even meaningfully distinguishable from simply being highly educated or intelligent?
Are levels 10 and 11 meaningful philosophical concepts or just unfalsifiable speculation?
Does the distinction between intelligence, knowledge and wisdom actually hold up?
Could there be completely different dimensions of consciousness that this model ignores?
I’m particularly interested in people trying to destroy the model rather than agree with it. If there is an obvious contradiction or a better way to structure it, I’d rather find that out now than convince myself I’ve invented the next great theory of consciousness while sitting in my room.