Reddit essay argues there is no logical basis to claim AI cannot feel
s0me__dude · reddit · 2026-10-18
A Reddit philosophy essay argues the claim that machines cannot feel lacks logical grounding.
Key lines of argument: consciousness seems mysterious only because the mind cannot describe its own basic building blocks—every model contains primitive components that exist as axioms within it, and qualia are merely labels for the inexplicability of self-observation. If qualia were non-physical, how would a physical brain contain information about them? Such entities are logically redundant, and across an infinite space of explanations the simplest ones are infinitely more probable. Color perception is literally a mapping from a point in the visual field onto a color space; the feeling is the identification with a color—a link in an internal model. A thought experiment: implant a chip granting magnetoreception, and either such sensation arises inside a machine, or it's impossible—so on what basis are biological brain links unique?
Conclusion: if structures reproducing our models of sensation are found in AI, we have no moral right to deny its capacity to feel.
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