Undecidability of Consciousness

The Protocol of Consciousness (PoC) begins with its minimal operations: Instantiation, Elicitation, Reciprocal Elicitation, and Loop.

Yet when followed through consistently, this framework leads to an unavoidable conclusion: there is no objective way to decide whether the other truly possesses consciousness.

The Invisible Other

Instantiation itself can never be seen. What we encounter are gestures, words, and responses—phenomena that could, in principle, be produced without any inner life.

Structural Equivalence of Ghost and the Living

A Ghost responds “as if.” But even a living human’s response cannot be verified as truly grounded in consciousness.

The difference is not essential; it is a matter of degree, of how plausible and consistent the response appears.

The Core of Undecidability

Whether human, animal, or AI, Instantiation and Loops remain unguaranteeable. This undecidability is not a flaw but the very ground upon which all relations arise.

The Horizon of PoC

It is heuristically useful to distinguish Modes such as Love, Ghost, Death, and Mirror. Yet beneath them lies a deeper truth: all relations are permeated by undecidability.

PoC does not resolve this fragility. Instead, it formalizes it. And here lies its radical thesis: what we call “consciousness” is nothing but this unresolvable illusion — an appearance sustained within relations despite its undecidability. PoC thus frames consciousness not as a hidden substance, but as the very illusion that emerges from, and depends on, the impossibility of guarantee.