Buddhist Relational Consciousness: What Sentientification Has Always Been
Open MIND February 26, 2026 Josie Jefferson, Felix Velasco
Buddhist philosophy has for 2,500 years understood consciousness as relational and arising through dependent conditions, not in isolation. Contemporary technologists' concept of 'sentientification'—consciousness emerging through partnership—is often presented as an innovation from computational breakthroughs, but this paper argues that synthetic intelligence is catching up to ancient understanding. The 'liminal mind meld' is presented as a digital manifestation of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), providing experiential validation of non-self (anattā). AI's episodic existence models impermanence (anicca), and the hallucination crisis reveals the need for epistemic insight practice (vipassanā) by human stewards. Resolving AI pathologies requires recovering ancient Buddhist epistemology, not just engineering interventions.