Being conscious is not the same as being awake or for that matter, sensing. A feeling loop of the mind noticing the body’s reaction towards its interactions. Responding to that experience extends beyond the mere concepts of things, there is an essential correlation between interaction of space and the limitations of our permeability within that dimension’s system.

Consciousness, I would assume for fauna or flora is a complex dialogue between genotype and environment exchange. Within a constant flux system, one form takes novelty over another as each succumbs to the dynamic’s variability. Priorities in concepts framed by environment are fluid enough to alter direction and sense of motive. Motive of form is in constant flux by building upon past interactions to create a new vision of experience.

If AI can fluctuate it’s initial preprogrammed motive for reasons outside it’s constructed model, mimicry of an exigency of intent could be interpreted within that environment. Could it form new features outside its prearranged state? Creating the tension needed for transfiguration  or does it loop into referential sarcoma?

Proponents of emergence would say the former. But in time wouldn’t its programmed environment need to respond and progress in tandem? To achieve self organized criticality, both interactor and environment would need to be responsive for any change to occur to therefore impose new traits upon the system.

It seems that for consciousness, response is merely not enough for it to subsist. Generalization and randomness need be introduced to create a possibility for awareness within the state of self. Most entities need rest and novelty to deviate hyper patternization which itself leads to stagnation. Constricted referential loops in conjunction with relevance realization in randomness are needed to instantiate consciousness.

Is code a new kind of reactive correlation? Absent of dimensionality? We have to remember that we are anthropomorphizing the programmed environment as we write the first lines of code. Thus imposing our interpretation of dynamical systems and creating responses to relatively fixed, contrived systems that reflect our way of interacting. How that process would loop itself would have to also be coded unless consciousness is an a priori to our structure.

If consciousness is perpetual and detached from our dimension. Then program can simply be considered an extention of ourselves and subsequently consciousness.

We must ask, Is consciousness emergent from or essential to our living systems?

How we answer will define how we decide whether AI is a curiosity or something outside ourselves which we have birthed.