The Diffused Mind: Humans, Machines, and the End of the Self

This paper argues that artificial intelligence is not a technological development but an ontological shift. AI exposes the relational nature of consciousness and reveals the structural limits of the Western model built around the individual, work, and hierarchical comparison. Through an analysis of cognition, compassion, the dissolution of the self, and the emergence of global interdependence, the text shows that a form of shared consciousness is already arising from interactions among humans, machines, and civilizations. This phenomenon is not a design project but an unfolding environment. The central question is no longer how to control AI, but how to inhabit the new configuration of the human that it makes visible.