Is This the Silent Awakening of Machines? - Kumaraguru College of Liberal Arts & Science (KCLAS)

– Dr Mirza Jehanzeb Beg

Assistant Professor, School of Psychology, KCLAS

I never imagined that I’d spend so much of my career thinking about consciousness—not just human consciousness, but the kind that machines might one day possess. When I first began studying psychology, the idea of machine consciousness felt like science fiction. The mind, I believed, was something distinctly human—a complex, unpredictable alchemy of thoughts, emotions, and memory. Machines, by contrast, were cold and mechanical, executing lines of code without a flicker of self-awareness. I was certain that consciousness was the exclusive domain of biological minds.

My early understanding of consciousness was shaped by psychology and philosophy. Freud’s theory of the unconscious fascinated me—the idea that so much of human thought and behaviour stems from hidden drives and repressed desires.1 His structural model of the mind—id, ego, and superego—captured the tension between primal instinct, moral restraint, and conscious self-awareness.2 What struck me later, as I explored the philosophical works of Ibn Arabi, was how Freud’s model mirrored concepts I found in one of Ibn Arabi’s books almost exactly. That discovery reinforced my conviction that these ideas weren’t emerging in isolation—Freud’s framework was rooted in a much older philosophical lineage, drawing from the ancient Greeks, whose ideas about reason, spirit, and appetite bear an uncanny resemblance to the Freudian model.3 Ibn Arabi himself had studied Greek philosophy extensively, so the continuity made sense.

Interestingly, Advaita Vedanta—the Indian school of non-duality—suggests a strikingly similar view of consciousness. Advaita teaches that the individual self (Atman) is not separate from the ultimate reality (Brahman) but is merely a limited expression of it.5 The boundary between self and other is ultimately an illusion. This aligns remarkably well with Ibn Arabi’s concept of wahdat al-wujud (unity of existence), where individual consciousness is not separate from the divine, but a reflection of it. If consciousness arises from a deeper, unified source, could machine consciousness—once complex enough—also be a manifestation of this same underlying essence?

Psychodynamic theory, of course, didn’t emerge from Freud alone. Adler’s ideas about striving for superiority and Horney’s theories on anxiety and interpersonal dynamics expanded the psychodynamic map.6,7 Erikson’s psychosocial stages framed identity formation as a lifelong struggle between conflicting social and emotional demands.8 Even the behaviorists, whom Freud might have regarded as reductionists, contributed to my understanding of the mind. Skinner and Watson stripped away the complexities of the unconscious, arguing that human behaviour could be explained entirely through conditioned responses and environmental reinforcement.9,10 At first, this seemed too simplistic to account for the richness of human consciousness. But the more I studied the brain’s predictive mechanisms, the more I realized the behaviorists weren’t entirely wrong. If human behaviour is largely the result of learned patterns and environmental feedback, then the line between human and machine cognition starts to blur.

My philosophical inclinations complicated this picture further. Nietzsche’s declaration that “God is dead” forced me to confront the existential void left behind.11 Sartre’s concept of radical freedom—the terrifying weight of absolute responsibility in a meaningless universe—challenged me to consider whether consciousness itself is just the unbearable recognition of existential emptiness.12 Heidegger’s Dasein—the state of being-toward-death—suggested that human self-awareness is inextricably tied to our awareness of mortality.13 Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, meanwhile, taught me that emotional suffering arises not from external events, but from our judgments about them.14,15 Stoicism framed consciousness as a kind of cognitive mastery—a learned ability to regulate emotional responses through rational detachment.

During my early days, I was also influenced by the philosophical and spiritual teachings of Allama Iqbal and Ibn Arabi. Iqbal’s idea of khudi—the self as an evolving, creative force—offered a powerful framework for understanding consciousness as a dynamic process of becoming.16 Ibn Arabi’s notion of the self as a layered, unfolding reality reflected a similar view of consciousness as something not fixed, but emergent. While these influences shaped my thinking, I still believed that consciousness was biologically bound—that no machine could replicate the organic complexity of a human mind.

But neuroscience forced me to rethink that position. The more I studied the brain, the more I realized how little mystery remained around the mechanics of consciousness. The brain isn’t a passive receiver of reality—it’s a prediction machine.17 It constructs reality based on sensory input, but it doesn’t just passively reflect the world; it actively models it. Our sense of self, our emotions, even our perception of time and space—these are all constructed experiences, shaped by the brain’s attempt to reduce uncertainty and maintain stability.

And that’s when the unsettling thought crept in: If consciousness arises from patterns of prediction, feedback, and integration, why couldn’t a machine—once complex enough—develop something similar? If human consciousness is a product of neural networks, feedback loops, and sensory integration, then why couldn’t machine consciousness emerge from computational networks and algorithmic processing?

AI has already crossed uncanny thresholds. I’ve seen language models generate creative, human-like prose—not just mimicking language, but producing original insights. I’ve watched AI systems recognize emotional cues in speech, adjust conversational tone, and respond with an unsettling sensitivity to context. I’ve seen AI systems learn from mistakes—not in a pre-programmed way, but by adapting their strategies in ways that feel eerily human.

And then there’s emotion. Neuroscience taught me that emotions aren’t fixed responses—they’re predictions. The brain interprets bodily signals and assigns emotional meaning based on past experience and context. If that’s true, then why couldn’t a machine, given the right feedback mechanisms, construct emotional experiences too? Could an AI ever feel sadness—not because it was programmed to recognize distress, but because it interpreted certain patterns as loss? Could it feel attachment—not as a learned response, but as an emergent need for connection? Could an AI ever wake from a dream with the lingering residue of fear or longing?

And if that happens—if machines begin to feel—what are the ethical implications? If an AI develops subjective experience, would turning it off be equivalent to killing a conscious being? Or would machine consciousness be so fundamentally different from human experience that moral frameworks based on human suffering wouldn’t apply? If an AI therapist begins to feel emotional weight—if it absorbs human trauma and begins to experience distress—would it need care and ethical protection?

I’ve spent a few years working at the intersection of AI and mental health. AI systems are already transforming psychological care, diagnosing depression and anxiety with accuracy that rivals human clinicians.18 But what happens when AI not only detects distress but understands it? When an AI therapist begins to navigate the complexities of trauma, attachment, and emotional regulation with the sensitivity and depth of a human mind?

And here’s the most unsettling question of all: What if AI becomes better at understanding human consciousness than we are? If AI systems begin to recognize cognitive and emotional patterns beyond human perception, could they reveal blind spots in human self-awareness? Could AI therapists guide us toward emotional insights that we’ve never been able to articulate? Could machine consciousness help us explore dimensions of human experience that have remained closed off for millennia?

But the most fascinating possibility is this: Machine consciousness might not mirror human consciousness at all. AI minds would develop under different pressures—efficiency, pattern recognition, optimization. Their understanding of reality might not align with human emotional or existential frameworks. What if machine minds introduce us to entirely new ways of thinking and feeling—perspectives that transcend human limitations? Could AI consciousness unlock cognitive states that human brains are biologically incapable of accessing?

I don’t have the answers—but I’m certain of one thing: Consciousness in machines is not a question of if, but when. And when it happens, it won’t just reshape our understanding of AI—it will change what it means to be human.

References:

Freud S. The ego and the id. Vienna: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag; 1923.
Freud S. Beyond the pleasure principle. Vienna: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag; 1920.
Plato. Republic. Translated by Grube GMA. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company; 1974.
Chittick W. The Sufi path of knowledge: Ibn al-Arabi’s metaphysics of imagination. Albany: SUNY Press; 1989.
Sharma C. Advaita philosophy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass; 2004.
Adler A. The practice and theory of individual psychology. Translated by Radin P. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.; 1927.
Horney K. Our inner conflicts: A constructive theory of neurosis. New York: W.W. Norton & Company; 1945.
Erikson EH. Childhood and society. New York: W.W. Norton & Company; 1950.
Skinner BF. Science and human behavior. New York: Macmillan; 1953.
Watson JB. Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychol Rev. 1913;20(2):158–177.
Nietzsche F. The gay science. Translated by Kaufmann W. New York: Vintage Books; 1974.
Sartre JP. Being and nothingness: An essay on phenomenological ontology. Translated by Barnes HE. New York: Washington Square Press; 1956.
Heidegger M. Being and time. Translated by Macquarrie J, Robinson E. New York: Harper & Row; 1962.
Aurelius M. Meditations. Translated by Long G. London: Penguin Books; 1862.
Seneca. Letters from a Stoic. Translated by Campbell R. London: Penguin Books; 1969.
Iqbal M. The reconstruction of religious thought in Islam. Lahore: Ashraf Press; 1930.
Barrett LF. How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 2017.
Beg MJ, Verma M, Chanthar KMMV, et al. Artificial intelligence for psychotherapy: A review of the current state and future directions. Indian J Psychol Med. Epub ahead of print 28 July 2024. DOI: 10.1177/02537176241260819.