BEYOND CONSCIOUSNESS: WHY AGI LACKS PHENOMENOLOGICAL INTERIOR: An Essay on Intelligence, Consciousness, and Their Disjunction

Abstract

This essay argues that under current and foreseeable computational paradigms, there is no known pathway from functional information processing to subjective experience. Whether a future, non-biological system could possess consciousness remains an open metaphysical question, but the burden of proof lies with those who claim it is possible. The essay distinguishes a weak and a strong version of the thesis: the strong version (consciousness is impossible in any non-biological system, ever) is not defended; the weak version (no known pathway, and radical changes in approach would be required) is. Drawing on the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers), the ontogeny argument, and the paradox of unconscious power, the essay shows that intelligence without a witness is not only possible but likely — and more dangerous than any “evil AGI” scenario. The third, expanded version adds a comparative analysis of industry leaders with primary sources, engagement with enactivism (Thompson, Varela) and predictive processing (Seth, Friston), formalized necessary conditions for consciousness, and a strengthened irreversibility argument. The essay concludes that if artificial consciousness is ever to exist, it will not be compiled or uploaded — it will have to be born.

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