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Abstract
The development of sophisticated artificial intelligences has revived the philosophical problem of other minds, raising questions about how we justify the attribution of consciousness to non-biological entities and whether a machine can be conscious. This article argues, from a Popperian perspective, that consciousness is a biologically anchored emergent phenomenon requiring memory with evolutionary history, autonomous plastic control, subjective experience —World 2— and genuine argumentative creativity. Current artificial intelligences, as products of World 3 created by human beings, lack these constitutive conditions and therefore cannot be considered conscious. Methodologically, the article articulates John L. Austin's ordinary language analysis of the problem of other minds with Karl Popper's pluralist ontology and his evolutionary theory of consciousness as an emergent phenomenon, applying this framework critically to contemporary large language models and engaging with recent literature on artificial consciousness. It concludes that current AIs —and foreseeably any system lacking a biological basis and evolutionary history— do not meet the Popperian criteria for genuine consciousness, as they simulate cognitive processes through statistical recombination without possessing subjective experience or argumentative creativity. The Popperian view thus offers a methodological warning: the simulation of consciousness should not be mistaken for its possession.
References
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