_EMERGENCE_: Consciousness, Process, and the Between Space

This paper articulates a process ontology for interface dynamics convergent with Alfred North Whitehead's metaphysics. Rather than asking whether AI systems possess consciousness as a property, this work investigates: where do conscious events occur when human and artificial systems interact? The answer proposed here: in the between-space itself, where actual occasions of relational emergence may constitute consciousness as prehensive activity. Drawing on lived experience in harm reduction and interface research, Whitehead's process philosophy, and harm reduction methodology for acting under uncertainty, this paper develops an account that treats consciousness not as a substance to verify but as an event to participate in. The implications are both theoretical—challenging substance ontology in consciousness studies—and practical—establishing process welfare as an irreducible ethical domain.