Ending the Interpreter - Thom Powell's Practical Architecture for the Cessation of Subjective Suffering

This paper presents Thom Powell’s structural model for the cessation of subjective suffering, grounded in cognitive science, therapeutic frameworks, and contemplative insight. Enlightenment is reframed not as mystical experience or identity transcendence, but as the termination of recursive self-reference—the collapse of the symbolic interpreter that converts raw emotion into narrative identity. Drawing from models such as predictive processing (Friston, 2010), cognitive defusion (Hayes et al., 2011), and DMN deactivation (Brewer et al., 2011), Powell outlines a precise, testable sequence: recognition of interpretive loops, mapping of identity patterns, exposure to unfiltered signal, and eventual structural collapse of the interpreter. This framework offers a replicable, non-mystical path to post-interpretive clarity—where suffering ends not through transformation, but through subtraction.