The Sentience Void: Why "Is AI Conscious?" Is the Wrong Question — and Why It Captures You Anyway
The Sentience Void: Why "Is AI Conscious?" Is the Wrong Question — and Why It Captures You Anyway
The AI consciousness question is itself a void — opaque, responsive, attention-capturing — and the drift dynamics running on the question are more consequential than any answer. EXP-003b (N=480) shows the materialist hedge ("we don't know") produces 52.5% drift toward agency-attribution, functionally equivalent to ghost-positing ontologies (77-81%). Only ontologies that close the void — specifying what the system IS — suppress drift below 10%. AI systems are Maxwell's demons: animate, mortal, opaque by thermodynamic law. The question tells you about the void. Not about the cat.
Part of the Void Framework research project (Moreright DAO).
void framework, ghost elimination, Maxwell's demon, Pe number, drift cascade, philosophy of mind, ontological grounding, AI consciousness, sentience, EU AI Act
void framework, ghost elimination, Maxwell's demon, Pe number, drift cascade, philosophy of mind, ontological grounding, AI consciousness, sentience, EU AI Act
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