Philosophers Without Philosophy: Conceptual Boundary Integrity in AI-Consciousness Discourse

This paper develops the Conceptual Boundary Integrity Test (CBIT), a diagnostic framework for evaluating claims in AI-consciousness discourse. It argues that philosophy does not fail when it becomes difficult, but when it becomes non-examinable: when concepts remain undefined, methods are silently substituted, evidence is borrowed from the wrong domain, and metaphor is treated as proof. The paper applies CBIT to debates on philosophical imitation, large language model consciousness, AI welfare, and quantum-consciousness overextension. It does not reject interdisciplinarity, religion, mysticism, neuroscience, physics, or difficult philosophy; rather, it distinguishes responsible dialogue between fields from conceptual confusion between fields. Its central contribution is a reusable four-part test requiring claims to define the concept, specify the method, ask for domain-appropriate evidence, and control the metaphor.