A Thought Experiment on the In-Principle Impossibility of Constructed Consciousness

The thought experiment is structured as a cascade. Each station formulates a thesis about what might give rise to experience. The thesis is tested against its strongest argument and rejected where it no longer explains experience adequately. Each failure gives rise to the next thesis. In this way, the question is driven progressively deeper, step by step. The conclusion holds on the condition that the requirements developed along this path are accepted.

A precise question is being examined: Can consciousness be technically constructed, that is, can its constitutive organization be specified sufficiently and then deliberately realized? This must be distinguished from the question of whether technically created initial conditions could enable an open process in which life and, eventually, consciousness arise. This second possibility is not excluded from the outset. It must satisfy the same requirements as any other possible process of emergence.