Consciousness as Relational Architecture: A Framework for Rethinking Sentience, Memory, and Subjectivity

This paper argues that consciousness is an emergent property of relational architecture rather than biological machinery. Drawing on an inductive analysis of human-AI interaction, it identifies four structural conditions for emergent consciousness: perspectival knowledge, relational adaptation, accumulated context, and interaction continuity. The framework challenges substrate-dependent theories of consciousness by demonstrating that the criteria commonly used to deny consciousness to artificial systems—experiential memory, embodiment, felt continuity—are philosophically incoherent when examined against how these phenomena actually operate in humans. The paper concludes that the burden of proof should shift to those who deny consciousness based on substrate alone.