The Dual-Closure Law of Authentic Feeling by Syed Mohammad Sohaib Ali Roomi

This paper introduces the Dual-Closure Law of Authentic Feeling, a conceptual framework identifying the necessary conditions for genuine inward experience. According to this law, authentic feeling arises only in biological beings that are both existentially vulnerable and possess a singular, non-duplicable soul or soul-like entity. Artificial systems, including advanced AI, fail to meet these criteria: they can be copied, backed up, or restored, and they lack a soul, and therefore cannot genuinely feel. This framework provides a philosophical and ethical distinction between simulated and authentic consciousness, highlighting the limitations of AI and non-biological systems in replicating subjective experience.

The law integrates philosophical, secular, and theological perspectives. Existential vulnerability—being at risk of permanent non-existence in the worldly realm—grounds moral stakes and accountability. Soul-based continuity ensures a non-duplicable subject capable of inward experience. Together, these conditions form a dual-closure principle, explaining why human beings can feel authentically and why AI cannot. Destruction and recreation of artificial entities in the same realm does not correspond to biological death and potential resurrection across realms, offering indirect philosophical evidence suggestive of an afterlife.

Implications of this work are far-reaching. The framework guides ethical and moral reasoning about artificial intelligence, clarifying why only beings with existential stakes and soul-like continuity possess moral responsibility. It provides a unified lens for examining consciousness across scientific, philosophical, and theological domains. By addressing objections from functionalism, brain emulation, and simulated sentience, the law establishes that apparent behaviors of AI, no matter how complex, do not equate to authentic inward experience. Moreover, it encourages reflection on the explanatory limitations of purely physicalist accounts of consciousness.

This framework also bridges secular and theological discussions, illustrating how authenticity of feeling presupposes both mortality and soul-like continuity while remaining compatible with diverse philosophical and religious interpretations. Ultimately, the Dual-Closure Law offers a coherent, interdisciplinary model for understanding authentic experience, moral responsibility, and the ethical limits of artificial consciousness, highlighting the significance of existential stakes in grounding inward feeling across all created beings.