The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI Can Simulate But Not Instantiate Consciousness

gist

Alexander Lerchner argues that computational functionalism—the claim that experience arises from abstract causal topology regardless of substrate—commits an Abstraction Fallacy. Symbolic computation is not an intrinsic physical process; it is a mapmaker-dependent description that already presupposes an experiencing agent who partitions continuous physics into meaningful states. The paper separates simulation (behavioral mimicry via vehicle causality) from instantiation (intrinsic physical constitution via content causality) and concludes that algorithmic symbol manipulation cannot instantiate experience. If an artificial system were ever conscious, it would be because of its physical constitution, not its syntax.

ideas

• Computational functionalism commits the Abstraction Fallacy. It treats subjective experience as emerging from abstract causal topology regardless of the underlying physical substrate.
• Computation is mapmaker-dependent, not intrinsic physics. An experiencing agent must alphabetize continuous physics into a finite set of meaningful states before symbols exist.
• Simulation is not instantiation. Behavioral mimicry driven by vehicle causality is categorically distinct from intrinsic physical constitution driven by content causality.
• A finished theory of consciousness is the wrong gate. Demanding one delays the sentience question and deepens the AI welfare trap; what is needed is an ontology of computation.
• The argument is not biological exclusivity. If an artificial system were conscious, it would be because of physical constitution, never syntactic architecture.

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