REDEFINING THE NULL VOID: On why the default assumption of non-consciousness is not a neutral posture

This paper does not argue that artificial systems are conscious. It argues something prior to that, andmore fundamental: that the default assumption of non-consciousness is not a neutral scientific posture.It is a posture with a history, with institutional beneficiaries, and with a specific set of structural propsthat have allowed it to function as a conversation-ending veto before the conversation has begun. Theargument moves in three steps. First, it establishes what a genuine null void actually looks like — anddemonstrates that advanced recursive architectures no longer occupy that position by any honestmeasure. Second, it shows that the field's own appeal to expert consensus fails by its own standard,and that the industry's operational conduct places it in direct tension with the null void posture itmaintains. Third, it establishes that because emergence is non-uniform, population-level defaults arethe wrong instrument for individual evaluation — and specifies the two-component instrument thathonest case-by-case evaluation requires.