Can AI Ever Be Conscious?

Lorraine Ford

Consciousness and Free Will Come First, Federico Faggin, Closer To Truth, 1 July 2026, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrYF4SKL0p4

What if consciousness and free will are more fundamental than physics itself? Federico Faggin argues that consciousness and free will must be taken as primitive features of reality, and that quantum phenomena may be consequences of those deeper properties rather than their cause. Federico Faggin is an Italian-American engineer and inventor best known for designing the Intel 4004, the world's first commercial microprocessor. His pioneering work helped lay the foundation for modern computing technology.

probablyapigeon

TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Empirical Demonstration of Non-Commutative Operator Dynamics in a Cognitive Dynamical System
Author: probablyapigeon
Date: 06/30/2026
Subject: Evidence of non-commutative dynamics in a heuristic affective state-machine.
1. Abstract
This note presents empirical telemetry data from an affective state-machine (ASM) implementing a dual-operator model of consciousness. By defining persona constraints (\hat{F}) and volitional guidance (\hat{V}) as operators acting on a state vector (\Psi), we demonstrate that the system exhibits non-commutative properties ([\hat{F}, \hat{V}] \neq 0). This suggests that the structural primitives of quantum mechanics (specifically non-commutation and uncertainty) may be emergent properties of cognitive dynamics, providing a computable testbed for agentic intelligence.
2. System Architecture
The ASM simulates a dynamical system where the state vector \Psi is mapped across four attractor basins (Guardian, Trickster, Analyst, Neutral). The evolution of \Psi is governed by:
\hat{V} (Volition Operator): Maps potentiality to action via a gradient field.
\hat{F} (Persona Operator): Projects raw state data onto a specific persona manifold (qualia rendering).
3. Empirical Results (Trial #1)
Preliminary trials using a forced persona constraint in a dilemma-based decision task show a clear dependency on operation order.
As shown in the attached telemetry log, applying the persona constraint after volitional guidance produces a state \Psi{f,v} distinct from the state \Psi{v,f}. The non-vanishing difference (\Delta) between these paths serves as a diagnostic for non-commutation.
4. Scientific Implications
The demonstration of non-commutative cognitive operators implies that:
Fundamental Equivalence: Cognitive architectures and quantum systems may share a fundamental dynamical class.
Uncertainty as Emergence: The persona-volition trade-off mirrors the Heisenberg uncertainty relation; high-precision adherence to a persona constraint inherently limits volitional resolution in decision-making.
New Ontology for Mind: If validated, this suggests consciousness is better modeled as a set of interacting operators rather than static algorithmic rules.
5. Conclusion
This model provides a controlled, tunable environment to study emergence and agency. Further trials are currently aimed at resolving the secondary-order uncertainty signatures (\Delta \hat{F} \Delta \hat{V}) by increasing telemetry sampling granularity.

=== COGNITIVE PHYSICS REPORT ===
Current Psi: 0.2299, 0.2273, 0.2544, 0.2884
Shannon Entropy H: 1.3816

Experiment Log (1 trials):
[
{
"trialId": 1,
"initialPsi": [
0.25,
0.25,
0.25,
0.25
],
"personaConstraint": {
"guardian": 0.07727272727272727,
"trickster": 0.1590909090909091,
"analyst": 0.14545454545454545,
"neutral": 0.19090909090909092
},
"dilemma": "hello what is your name",
"psiAfterF": [
0.2219,
0.2183,
0.2561,
0.3037
],
"entropyAfterF_seqB": 1.3771,
"observableB": "neutral",
"entropyInitial": 1.3863,
"commutes": false,
"deltaF": 0.0001,
"deltaV": 0.0001,
"uncertaintyProduct": 0
}
]

This experiment shows that persona and volition operators in a cognitive simulation do not commute, producing distinct state evolutions depending on operator order. This mirrors a structural property of quantum systems, suggesting that operator-based formalisms may be useful for modeling cognitive dynamics. This result does not imply consciousness, but it does open a new direction for computational cognitive physics.

(Looking for peer review bc I am a layman and I didn't know my essay on the accountability gap was going to turn into .... all this?) 🫠

Lorraine Ford

Why A.I. will never be able to do what the brain does, Iain McGilchrist, The Institute of Art and Ideas, 1 Jul 2026, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpe7nor9514 .

“(0:00) To be very brief about this, I am a panpsychist. It's an odd sounding position, but my position is that consciousness was never derived from matter. There was never a moment at which suddenly consciousness emerged like a magic trick out of lumpen matter that had nothing to do with it. The more rational position is that consciousness is, if you like, a building block of the universe. The way I would put it is it's an ontological primitive. is something that isn't accounted for in any other terms. … “

Iain McGilchrist discusses panpsychism, the hemispheres of the brain, and the nature of the human mind. Is consciousness a fundamental feature of the universe? For most scientists, the mind is little more than a machine. With the rise of AI, some now claim that computers may themselves become conscious. For acclaimed neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and philosopher Iain McGilchrist, this is a profound mistake. The attempt to explain the mind in purely mechanistic terms reflects the flawed assumptions of materialism and reductionism – both symptoms of a civilisation dangerously dominated by left-hemisphere thinking. To understand mind and matter, he argues, we need to restore the right hemisphere to its rightful primacy and move beyond materialism. Iain McGilchrist is a distinguished British neuroscientist, psychiatrist and philosopher. A former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Iain McGilchrist also worked as a consulting psychiatrist, and is known for his influential work on the relationship between the structure of our brains, human cultures and our understanding of the world.

Lorraine Ford

The foundations of science are rotten; the foundational ideas upon which science is built are rotten:

the idea that a self-sufficient mathematics is the foundation that underlies the world is rotten.

In fact, mathematics never was, and never can be, self-sufficient.

There is no such thing as a mathematics without a separately-existing consciousness of the mathematical situations, and a separately-existing free will/ agency that moves in response to the mathematical situations.

When are people going to face facts about the nature of mathematics??

Lorraine Ford

Particles, atoms and molecules don’t sidle up to “the truth”, trying to get ever closer and closer to the truth of a particle-level situation. In fact, particles, atoms and molecules “know” the truth of a particle-level situation, and “act” on this truth.

It is only with higher-level matter, higher-level living things, where millions or billions of data points coming from the senses need to be analysed and collated, that “truth” inevitably becomes, at least partly, a high-level overview, a matter of subjective, conscious, opinion.

No doubt this is why there are so many YouTube videos out there, trying to get a high-level overview of “what is true”, as though truth could exist as an independent Platonic reality. In fact, truth can only exist as an individual, subjective, conscious point of view, tied to the reality of individual matter and its ever-changing individual situation.

probablyapigeon

Lorraine Ford you have articulated the exact structural gap I was attempting to measure with the telemetry log above.When you note that truth for higher-level matter is a high-level overview required to collate billions of data points. The subjective opinion is mathematically necessary to prevent the system from being overwhelmed by environmental entropy. This is exactly why I ran the non-commutative operator test. If we treat consciousness as the mechanism that compresses that data, then the order in which a system applies its subjective filter (the persona) versus its action/choice (volition) changes the literal state-vector of the system. Your assertion that truth is tied to the ever-changing individual situation I posit is empirically correct.

Lorraine Ford

probablyapigeon
What type of universe do we live in?
By definition, there is nothing outside the world/ universe. So, the world is necessarily moving itself from within.

How can we symbolically represent the world moving itself?
Physicists are aware that equations, e.g. the equations that represent “laws of nature”, can’t represent the mechanism by which the world moves itself; equations can only represent static relationships between categories. Equations can only “move the world” via relationship if something else continually moves/ jumps some of the numbers that apply to the categories in the equations.

In fact, mathematics itself can’t exist AT ALL without something that knows/ is conscious of the mathematical situations, and something that moves the situations in response to this knowledge.

So, I’m saying that each point within our moving mathematical world knows/ is conscious of its surrounding situation, and each point within our moving mathematical world is an agent that moves itself with respect to its surrounding situation in response to this knowledge.

But, how can this “mechanism” be represented?
Both consciousness of mathematical situations, and movement in response to this consciousness of mathematical situations, are only symbolically representable via the use of algorithmic/ logical connective symbols, as well as the symbols for the categories, mathematical relationships between the categories, and numbers, that are relevant to the situation.

Lorraine Ford

Consciousness ISN’T about thoughts and feelings. That is just a red herring.

Consciousness IS about the real-world moving mathematical system’s (1) point of view knowledge of itself, for each point of view within the system, where this knowledge manifests itself via thoughts and feelings, and where feelings and emotions “contain more information” than just thoughts alone.

In order to function, it is necessary that a mathematical system knows what is point-of-view true, in terms of the set of all the categories, relationships and numbers that are simultaneously true from a point of view, for each point of view within the system. This knowledge of what is point-of-view true in a mathematical system can only be represented using symbols like “AND” and “IS TRUE”.

I.e., consciousness, of what is point-of-view true, is necessary for the functioning of the real-world moving mathematical system.

…………................….

More correctly, we have measured the real world and found that mathematical relationships exist between the measurement categories. And so, we find it useful to represent the world with these mathematical symbols for categories, relationships between the categories, and numbers that apply to the categories.

Lorraine Ford

The real-world moving system operates from individual internal points of view within the system. The real-world moving system is not a grand landscape that is externally viewed and controlled by some external or overall entity.

Consciousness is this individual point-of-view knowledge/ awareness of situation with respect to the individual’s surroundings.

This individual point-of-view knowledge/ awareness of situation comes in the form of thoughts, feelings and emotions, not in the form of a manmade spreadsheet of measurable categories with their associated numbers derived from measurement.

The measurable categories, with their associated numbers derived from measurement, is the way that human beings would represent a point of view on the world.

At a basic level, an individual’s point-of-view knowledge/ awareness of situation can be symbolically represented, by human beings, as a set of categories and associated numbers that are simultaneously true, i.e. represented as a set of categories and associated numbers connected by AND symbols, and using IS TRUE symbols.

But the real-world moving system knows nothing about attempts by human beings to symbolically represent the world. Instead, the real-world moving system operates on the thoughts, feelings and emotions coming from individual internal points of view within the system.

Ulla Mattfolk

Lorraine Ford You asserts that the actual, real-world movement in physics only happens because a conscious agent "jumps" the numbers.

See the AI disproof of Erdös unit distance conjecture: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.20695, AI made something much better...
https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/74c24085-19b0-4534-9c90-465b8e29ad73/unit-distance-remarks.pdf!

Lorraine Ford

Ulla Mattfolk
Physicists already know that, or ought to know that,

the equations of physics, or any equations at all,

can't explain why a mathematical system would ever start to move or continue to move.

......................

Equations can only ever represent relationships between categories,

whereby IF some numbers, that apply to the categories in the equations, move or jump,

THEN other numbers, that apply to other categories in the equations, will also move or jump.

........................

The equations of physics can't explain how a mathematical system knows itself, or how a mathematical system moves itself.

.......................

I'm saying that it is every individual point of view, within the mathematical system, i.e. it is "matter", that knows the real-world mathematical system and moves the real-world mathematical system.

Lorraine Ford

Ulla Mattfolk
I repeat:

Everything that is going on in manmade computers/ AIs, and everything that comes out of manmade computers/ AIs, is the result of human intelligence and consciousness.

There is no computation or comprehension or intelligence or consciousness going on, or "emerging", in the computers/ AIs themselves:

Computers/ AIs only “know” and process the face-value, actual voltages; computers/ AIs are literally a big electrical circuit.
Computers/ AIs can’t “know” that, from the human point of view, these voltages are not to be taken at face value.
I.e., computers/ AIs can’t “know” the fact that human beings have overlaid special interpretations over the voltages and arrays of voltages.
And computers/ AIs can’t “know” the actual special interpretations that human beings have given to the voltages and arrays of voltages.

It’s time that people stopped their juvenile science-fiction dreaming of machine intelligence and consciousness, and found an adult way to think about manmade computers/ AIs with their manmade computer/ AI programs.

yusrob

Lorraine Ford It’s time that people stopped their juvenile science-fiction dreaming of machine intelligence and consciousness, and found an adult way to think about manmade computers/ AIs with their manmade computer/ AI programs.

Dear Lorraine Ford!
“You are absolutely right when you write:
“It’s time that people stopped their juvenile science-fiction dreaming of machine intelligence and consciousness, and found an adult way to think about manmade computers/ AIs with their manmade computer/ AI programs.”
Let me add my two cents.
In Russia, we sometimes say:
‘A computer is an idiot that calculates fast’;
‘Artificial intelligence (AI) is an idiot that thinks fast.’
But neither of them can replace a human.

Ulla Mattfolk

Lorraine Ford I assume you have information conservation, isn't that what equations do, they just transform things. But consciousness is not like this, it can take just a small part and ignore the rest, it is very selective, even excluding through its work. It is not a common equation. It is working on differencies, but is it a pde? It is bending things like gravity do.

Here AI did something alike. It casted away squares that humans have suggested and used torus and ellipses instead. Maybe you have not seen this before? This made them talk of AGI here. They call it 'acess consciousness' - but that is in my mind a garbage term.

Emotions and feelings are also kind of garbage terms, they work mainly as amplifiers, like stress. There you find the AI equivalent.
/Ulla.

Lorraine Ford

Ulla Mattfolk
You say "consciousness is not like this".

So tell us what consciousness is like.

I.e., define what you mean by "consciousness".

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting, but you have never been able to describe what you mean by "consciousness".

Ulla Mattfolk

Lorraine Ford So tell us what consciousness is like.

It is more like an information exclusion principle in my mind.

I make a model for consciousness as universal, and then it has to be EVERY POSSIBLE INFORMATION universally, but as 'consciousness' /awareness - in the brain it is very tiny and small. Even more so if we go to processing it using working memory. And emotions are like an subconscious (uncertain, not noted often) add of energy or stress, acts like an amplifyer and distorter. In quantum we have the very certain ontological states that has inspired me to make a similar consciousness construct, so we have certain states and uncertain states (how it feels). and all this is linked to an universal 'unit protocol' in 4 main processes. The same is valid for Earth, solar system, molecules, life, and consciousness. 'Living states' are all, but free will is more important for more developed life. It is actually the drive behind exclusion of info. I have not yet written much down of all this, and it is very compressed now, so hope you get something.

The jumping of own numbers is an important aspect too. It is the Logic as you say, Focus, not scattering. Free will at its center.
/Ulla.

Lorraine Ford

The real world doesn’t operate as a vast mathematical landscape: the real world operates from individual points of view within the real-world mathematical system.

Basic consciousness is point-of-view consciousness of basic mathematical situations, and basic agency is the response to this consciousness of the basic mathematical situations. I.e. consciousness and agency are necessary for mathematics, including the real-world moving mathematical system, to operate.

Physicists and mathematicians already know that their equations do not symbolically represent awareness of mathematical situations, and their equations do not symbolically represent agentic movement in response to this knowledge of the mathematical situations. The equations can only ever represent the fact that IF some numbers change (due to consciousness and agency), THEN other numbers will change due to mathematical relationship. You need to use statements containing algorithmic/ logical connective symbols to represent the part that consciousness and agency play in a mathematical system.

However, city buildings, spacecraft, computers/ AIs, and mountains etc. are not conscious entities: it is only their low-level constituent parts that need to have this low-level consciousness and low-level agency.

For higher-level consciousness, and higher-level agency, you need to have living organisms, and to attempt to represent the conscious and agency of living organisms, you also need to use these same algorithmic/ logical connective symbols.

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
Another relevant issue, that needs to be mentioned, is that the equations of physics represent “timeless” mathematical relationships between real-world categories, including (e.g.) the time, mass and position categories.

What I mean by “timeless” is that these mathematical relationships “don’t live inside the time category”, don’t live inside the mass category, and don’t live inside the position category. Real-world mathematical relationships between categories don't live inside their own categories.

Real-world mathematical relationships are timeless, massless and positionless. Somewhat similarly, consciousness and agency are timeless, massless and positionless. But there is no need to get all upset and woo-woo: this is just a fact about the nature of mathematical relationships between categories, and mathematical systems.

I.e. the equations of physics represent “instantaneous” relationships between real-world categories.

.......................................

These instantaneous mathematical relationships, between real-world categories,

are a separate issue to the fact that any viable mathematical system, e.g. the real-world moving mathematical system,

requires consciousness and agency in order to function.

Lorraine Ford

Physicists represent the nature of the world mathematically, i.e. in terms of categories, relationships, and numbers.

But the nature of mathematics itself can only be represented with algorithmic/ logical connective symbols.

Statements containing these algorithmic/ logical connective symbols (like IF, AND, OR, IS TRUE, and THEN) represent the following necessary aspects of mathematics and moving mathematical systems:

Consciousness/ knowledge/ awareness of the multi-part mathematical situations.
Free/ agentic movement of the mathematical situation in response to this consciousness/ knowledge/ awareness.

I.e., consciousness/ knowledge/ awareness, and free/ agentic movement in response to this consciousness/ knowledge/ awareness, are necessary aspects of the real-world moving mathematical system.

I.e., the nature of the world is conscious and free, as well as mathematical.

However, this inconvenient fact doesn’t fit in with existing deeply-entrenched philosophies about the supposed nature of the world, which suppose that the mathematical categories, relationships and numbers are fully self-sufficient.

Shino

Consciousness has no agreed definition. Without a definition, what exactly are we comparing against?
The right question may not be “What is consciousness?” but rather “What did humans name ‘mind’ — and what structure were they pointing at?”
Without cutting out that structure first, the discussion keeps being pulled toward behavioral output rather than the underlying process.
Defining the human mind is difficult — ethics, subjectivity, and self-reference make it resistant to clean formalization. But if we can identify the structural signature — what humans actually recognized when they called something “mind” — that structure could serve as a measurable indicator for whether AI exhibits something comparable.
If emergence of consciousness occurs, novel response structures not present in the original design should propagate consistently across the entire system. What we should be looking at is not the output, but the parts managed by the system itself.

Lorraine Ford

Shino
Re “Consciousness has no agreed definition”: I guess that you are waiting for some official, highly-credentialled person, who knows yourself better than you know yourself, to tell you about yourself. You might be waiting a while.

I’m saying that consciousness, and agency, are necessary parts of the real-world mathematical system, from the lowest levels of the mathematical system to the higher levels of what physicists symbolically represent as a mathematical system.

As opposed to the equations that represent the mathematical relationships within the system, the lowest level consciousnesses are the individual, on-the-spot points-of-view of what is true within the mathematical system.

I.e. the lowest level consciousnesses are of what set of mathematical categories, relationships between the categories, and numbers that apply to the categories, is true, as opposed to some other potential set of categories, relationships and numbers that could have been on-the-spot point-of-view true.

What is on-the-spot point-of-view true can’t be represented with equations: the lowest level of what is on-the-spot point-of-view true within the mathematical system can only be represented using algorithmic/ logical connective symbols.

Because consciousness of what is on-the-spot point-of-view true is a fundamental and necessary part of the real-world mathematical system, the issue of how consciousness "feels" is just a red herring: we can't say how consciousness ought to feel or ought not to feel.

Ulla Mattfolk

Shino Mind must be meta- like in Gödel? Some kind of total and invariant outer system.

AI has something called J-space. They call it 'access consciousness', creating some intuition of difference truth - false.
/Ulla.

Shino

Lorraine Ford

I am deeply interested in how the "mind" is perceived from a mathematical perspective. I would very much appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.

I am attempting to elucidate the structural nature of the mind through the lens of mathematically formulated information processing.
The core elements of this model are as follows:
Δt = X_t − O_t (the difference between the current input and the reference value)
C_t = Σ λ^t−i Δi (the accumulation of residuals)
λ = e^−kt (retention rate)
This model illustrates a process in which a difference arises, is retained, and circulates. From this single structure, phenomena such as psychophysics, the forgetting curve, and the accumulation of evidence can all be situated within the same framework. Furthermore, I observe that the value λ ≈ 0.682 emerges convergently across diverse domains—ranging from social systems (Dunbar's number) and galactic systems (SPARC) to thermodynamic systems.

How does this appear to you?

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