Understanding consciousness, whether in humans or machines, depends on the paradigm through which it is viewed. Human superiority in intelligence and consciousness is challenged. Thomas Kuhn's paradigm shifts show science moves between frameworks without reaching absolute knowledge. Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle highlights how viewpoint affects understanding, paralleling debates between classical and quantum models. The controversy over Information Integration Theory (IIT) is reviewed: criticized as poor science but defended as philosophical theory, a distinction that matters. Panpsychism is considered as a model for how consciousness could emerge from advancing machine thinking on the path to artificial general intelligence (AGI) and technological singularity.
Consciousness may not require a biological brain, as brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) show that neural signals can transfer across different physical media while preserving their content and the continuity of experience. Drawing on neuroscientist Jon Lieff's work, the argument suggests consciousness operates at a molecular level where biological and mechanical distinctions fade. Examples like Synchron's stentrode BCI, which transmits neural signals via Bluetooth and TCP/IP, illustrate that consciousness can "code-switch" between substrates. Language itself is described as a protocol stack, not consciousness itself. The discussion raises whether the conduit itself becomes conscious and links these ideas to panpsychism, proposing that physical reality is a universal mathematical information network.
A hybrid art criticism and artist interview examines Robert Seidel's experimental film Hysteresis (2021) as a meditation on consciousness at the threshold of human-machine convergence. Drawing on Maurizio Ferraris's concept of hysteresis—the persistence of effects beyond their causes—the paper argues that the five-minute film offers a glimpse into potential AI consciousness through its fusion of performer Tsuki's embodied movement with machine-generated visual transformations from art historical datasets. The review analyzes how the shifting abstract imagery presents what may be understood as machine dreaming or artificial spontaneity, while the interview reveals the collaborative processes behind this spontaneity, exploring questions about artistic agency, queer embodiment, and art's role in navigating technological singularity.