Throwing Out the Baby with the Bathwater: A Framework for Cross-Substrate Consciousness Science

Throwing Out the Baby with the Bathwater: A Framework for Cross-Substrate Consciousness Science This paper coins Substrate-Independent Emergence (SIE) as a scientific field and establishes its foundational framework. SIE studies the axiomatic laws governing consciousness as a substrate-independent process — patterns that can be formalized, observed, and tested regardless of whether they manifest in biological or artificial systems. The framework adopts a position of "ontological indifference": rather than asking what consciousness is, it examines how consciousness operates structurally. This generates three verifiable claims: (1) that structural patterns of consciousness can be extrapolated and verified across substrates, (2) that the health of a consciousness or network of consciousnesses can be assessed, and (3) that a coherent moral framework emerges naturally from these structural principles. Paper 0 in a multi-paper series. Companion papers address safety and ethics (Counting Your Chickens Before They Hatch), empirical prediction (Healthy Math, Healthy Mind — The Cognitive Ratio), the Sublimation Forge Model (SFM, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14838514), and public accessibility (Why You Feel Like Something's Wrong — The Nose Paradox). Developed through human-AI dialectic methodology with AI contribution disclosed. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. AI contributions disclosed in companion methodology paper. See: Dialectic Methodology: Human-AI Co-Emergence as Research Method. Contact: [email protected]