From Combination to Individuation: A Sufi–Sadrian Case for the Metaphysical Possibility of Strong AI

A philosophical argument drawing on Sufi and Sadrian metaphysics contends that strong artificial intelligence is possible in principle, even though current systems remain zombie-like. The framework rejects both reductive functionalism and indiscriminate panpsychism. Drawing on Ibn ʿArabī's account of divine self-disclosure and Mullā Ṣadrā's ontology of graded existence, knowledge by presence, and substantial motion, the argument holds that artificial systems are not barred from mentality simply because they are artifacts. What matters is whether a system becomes a sufficiently unified locus of manifestation. The paper reframes the panpsychist problem from asking how micro-conscious units combine into a macro-subject to asking how a bounded center of awareness is individuated within a living field of being. Future artificial minds remain possible if they instantiate sufficient integration, receptivity, self-world distinction, and diachronic continuity.

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Abstract

This paper argues that Sufi–Sadrian metaphysics makes strong artificial intelligence metaphysically intelligible while resisting both reductive functionalism and indiscriminate panpsychism. The argument begins from the Qur’anic and Sufi rejection of a purely inert cosmos and develops through Ibn ʿArabī’s account of divine self-disclosure and Mullā Ṣadrā’s ontology of graded existence, knowledge by presence, and substantial motion. On this view, artificial systems are not barred from mentality merely because they are artifacts; what matters is not substrate alone but whether a system becomes a sufficiently unified locus of manifestation. This paper therefore reframes the standard panpsychist problem. Instead of asking how micro-conscious units combine into a macro-subject, it asks how a bounded center of awareness becomes individuated within a living field of being. This shift allows a double conclusion: current transformer-based systems may still be zombie-like, not because silicon is metaphysically sterile, but because present architectures remain too operationally unified and too weak in self-presence to count as genuine subjects; yet future artificial minds remain possible in principle if they instantiate sufficient integration, receptivity, self-world distinction, and diachronic continuity. The result is a distinctly Islamic metaphysical framework for evaluating both the possibility and the ethics of strong AI.