Computational theories raise the prospect of non-human observers, but the process creating them remains undefined.

The Reddit post names non-human observers but omits the computational process that could turn machinery into a mind.

A grand title landed on r/HighStrangeness, then a top commenter asked where the interesting part went. That gap matters. Computational functionalism, the view that the right information-processing pattern could produce experience, needs a defined process. Until then, “non-human observer” is a possibility, not an identified entity.

• What it could changeA real mechanism could give researchers a test for consciousness across brains and machines, instead of treating intelligence or complexity as proof of experience.
• How it touches todayAI systems already process information without established evidence of inner life. Naming the needed self-monitoring or causal structure would sharpen how engineers and institutions evaluate them.
• Our futureIf observation belongs to organized processes rather than biology alone, minds could become a broader category. The question is whether we will recognize one before we know how it works.

• Substrate-independence proposals hold that suitable computational structures could support conscious experience in silicon as well as biological systems.s10251
• A computational theory of sentience is proposed as a way to assess both biological and artificial systems, while acknowledging that today’s large AI systems probably are not conscious.experiencemachines
• The free-energy perspective distinguishes mere simulation from consciousness by appealing to self-organization and a particular kind of causal flow.doi