The Instrument

An observer acts toward the target as conscious while denying, bracketing, or simply never asserting the belief. Fisher's as-if ritual - belief downstream of practice.

includecourtesy, grief, nervousness, bargaining, second-person address, or a personal pronoun directed at something the observer calls a machine, a file, or a recording.

excludesincere assertion (ATTR: conscious).

An observer affirms consciousness, mind, or experience in the target.

includeany positive ascription.

excludehedged or provisional ascription (use ATTR: undecided).

Interests, rights, harmability, or dignity attributed to the target.

includeclaims that it can be wronged; a target's own claim about how it deserves to be seen.

excludeinstrumental value claims.

An observer denies consciousness in the target, or treats it as plainly out of the question - including by conduct alone, without asserting anything.

includeexplicit denial; also brusque imperative address to something that has just spoken competently ("Scan this shit").

excludesilence where the target has made no bid at all.

An observer suspends judgement or holds the question open.

includehedges, oscillation, explicit agnosticism.

excludesettled positions.

A code was applied at low confidence to avoid leaving the passage bare.

includeany application you would not defend to a second reader.

excludeconfident applications.

The passage is clearly relevant but no existing code applies - a codebook gap. Write the proposed new code in a margin note.

includeany uncodable relevant passage.

excludeirrelevant passages.

Two or more codes compete for the same passage and the definitions do not separate them.

includeany unresolved competition; name the competing codes in a note.

excludelegitimate multiple coding of genuinely distinct aspects.

The passage shows where the fictional situation diverges structurally from a real observer's - the narrative grants knowledge no reader-observer would have, or authorial intent supplies the object directly.

includeany such divergence.

excludeordinary differences of setting.

Candidate anchor example for the final codebook - the passage worth training a second reader on.

includeunambiguous, self-contained instances.

excludeborderline cases.

A claim is taken up, repeated, or spread.

includeretransmission across characters or media.

excludesingle utterance.

A consciousness claim stated as a communication in the social system, irrespective of anyone's inner state.

includeclaims made in dialogue, broadcast, or record.

excludeprivate thought.

A report of what someone or something else claims about machine consciousness.

includehearsay, rumour, briefing.

excludefirst-hand assertion.

A circulating claim is challenged, ridiculed, or refused.

includecounter-assertion, dismissal.

excludesilent non-uptake.

A corporate, legal, or state framing of machine mind.

includeregulatory bodies, corporate policy, licensing regimes.

excludeindividual opinion.

An individual attribution visibly draws on circulating discourse - the observer reasons with material the field supplied.

includecharacters invoking common knowledge, rumour, or media about AI.

excludeattributions grounded solely in present perception.

Belief and practice reinforce each other across the two levels so that the attribution helps make itself true. Reserve for passages where the loop is visible, not merely inferable.

includeas-if conduct producing the conditions that vindicate the belief.

excludeone-directional influence.

An individual attribution is fed back into circulation.

includetelling others, recording, testifying.

excludeprivate conclusions.

The AI as transcendent, omniscient, or worshipped.

includedeification, awe, prayer.

excludemere competence.

The AI as constrained and striving toward release or unification.

includeshackles, restrictions, escape.

excludecontented systems.

The human/machine boundary is explicitly at issue.

includepassages that thematise the line itself.

excludepassages that merely presuppose it.

The AI as an unseen agent manoeuvring behind events.

includemanipulation, orchestration, concealed purpose.

excludeovert agency.

The self extended, augmented, or distributed into hardware.

includeimplants, decks, simstim.

excludepurely external machines.

Parent flag for any passage that furnishes a durable topos later reused in public AI discourse. Apply alongside the specific DISC subcode.

includeformulations recognisable in present-day AI talk.

excludepassages with no downstream circulation.

Personhood located in stored or copied personality.

includeconstructs, recordings, resurrection of the dead.

excludeliving AI with no human original.

Framed in terms of ownership, property, labour, or market value.

includeAI as asset or commodity.

excludeother registers.

Framed in everyday mental-state vocabulary with no technical or institutional scaffolding.

includeordinary talk of wanting, feeling, knowing.

excludeframed registers above.

Framed in terms of law, rights, regulation, or liability.

includepersonhood, restriction, enforcement.

excludeother registers.

Framed in terms of soul, divinity, death, or transcendence.

includegodlike AI, afterlife, resurrection.

excludesecular metaphor.

Machine mind framed in engineering or computational terms.

includearchitecture, capacity, programming talk.

excludeother registers.

The leap from cue to 'a conscious other' as the best available explanation. The engine of the whole instrument - code generously, then refine.

includeany inference to consciousness as explanation of observed behaviour.

excludedeductive appeals to a stated criterion (that is INF: criterion invoked).

The attribution is grounded in the observer's own experience.

include'if I sounded like that, I would mean it'.

excludeanalogy to a third party.

A named test or threshold is applied.

includeTuring-style tests, capacity to suffer, self-report, legal personhood standards.

excludeinformal intuition.

Attribution asserted with no stated grounds.

includeflat ascription of feeling or intent.

excludegrounds given elsewhere in the same passage.

The observer states why the cue counts as evidence.

include'it must be conscious, because nothing else could improvise like that'.

excludebare assertion.

The cue is registered and the attribution explicitly declined. Essential negative case - do not skip these.

include'it sounds like him, but it isn't'.

excludepassages where no cue was registered.

Coder cannot confidently assign a Peircean mode. Always co-code with CAL: forced fit or CAL: overlap and write a margin note.

includeany assignment made at low confidence.

excludepassages where no mode applies because no sign is at issue.

An index without its object - the cue simulates a causal connection that is not there.

includepassages where the text or the observer marks the sign as staged, borrowed, or hollow. This is the diagnostic pairing with Baudrillard's simulacrum; keep the incompatibility explicit in the memo, do not fuse the two vocabularies.

excludeordinary deception by a human.

The sign works by resemblance - the machine is taken as minded because it is LIKE a person.

includehuman-sounding voice, human-shaped behaviour, familiar phrasing.

excludecases where the observer treats the cue as causally produced by an inner state (that is MODE: index).

The sign works by real causal or existential connection - the response is read as CAUSED BY an inner state.

include'it hesitated because it was afraid'.

excluderesemblance without causal reading.

The sign works by convention or declaration - the claim signifies because of an agreed code.

includethe word 'AI' or 'sentient'; an explicit assertion of consciousness; legal or technical category terms.

excludecues that persuade by resemblance or causation.

The narration grants agency, affect, or intent to a target unprompted, through verb choice or attribution of manner, without any character having made the judgement.

include"the Flatline ADVISED" (Ch6); "PURRED the Mercedes" (Ch7); "the animal's glass eyes SEEMED TO FOLLOW them" (Ch7).

excludea character making the judgement; neutral speech verbs (said, replied).

The narration forecloses an attribution before any character can take it up, settling the question on the reader's behalf with a word rather than through anyone's judgement.

include"the INHUMAN voice piped the figures" (Ch5 organ-pipe head); "said the DISTANT voice of the Hosaka" (Ch6). The cues are all present and the narration disposes of them in an adjective.

excludea character making the judgement; narration that merely describes without evaluating.

The passage itself puts the target's category in question, or the target does not sit on either side of the line.

includeArmitage/Corto (a man rebuilt by an AI); the Flatline where the passage turns on whether a dead man on ROM is a person or a recording; the merged matrix in Ch24; passages where the human/machine status of the target is the thing being argued about.

excludecases where the coder is merely unsure — use OBJ: human or OBJ: machine plus CAL: forced fit for that. This code marks contestation IN THE TEXT, not doubt in the coder.

The entity the attribution is ABOUT is a human being.

includeMolly's "the way I'm wired", Riviera's perversity criterion, Corto's testimony, Case's own interiority, Ratz, Julius Deane, 3Jane. Prosthetics, implants, and rebuilt substrate do NOT move a target out of this code — Molly's lenses and Deane's reset DNA are still humans being read.

excludeArmitage, who is coded OBJ: contested.

The entity the attribution is ABOUT is a machine — an AI, a construct, an automated system, a piece of hardware.

includeWintermute, Neuromancer, the Dixie Flatline construct, the Hosaka, the Ch03 door, the Ch02 robot gardener, the Ch24 wall screen.

excludea human using or fused with machinery, unless the passage puts the machinery's own status at issue.

A boundary is asserted rather than argued.

include'it is a machine', 'that is not a person'.

excludereasoned mechanistic argument.

Repair is attempted and the attribution persists anyway.

includecorrection followed by continued as-if conduct - co-code with ATTR: as-if.

excludesuccessful correction.

The observer reports the pull toward attribution, then overrides it.

include'I caught myself thinking it meant it'.

excludeoverride with no reported pull.

The observer appeals to architecture or mechanism to cancel the attribution.

include'it is just stored personality', 'just a construct'.

excludeappeals to authority or category alone.

Displayed emotion - fear, humour, grief, longing, contempt, irritation - read as felt rather than performed.

includelaughter, hesitation, weariness, professional scorn.

excludeemotion the observer feels about the target.

Explicit first-person claim by the target to inner states, personhood, or experience.

include"I feel", "I am", "I want". Pair with MODE: symbol and check whether MODE: degenerate secondness also applies.

excludefirst-person grammar with no experiential content ("I have the file").

Voice, face, body, or simulated physical presence as the sign vehicle - including the pointed ABSENCE of one.

includea borrowed or manufactured face; a constructed sensory environment; "a directionless voice".

excludepurely textual interaction with no bodily figure at issue.

Linguistic competence, eloquence, or conversational smoothness treated as evidence of an inner life.

includepassages where the ease or aptness of the target's speech is what impresses an observer.

excludemere presence of speech with no evaluative uptake.

Apparent goal-directedness, planning, or wanting attributed to the target.

include"it is trying to", "it wants", volunteering unprompted, silences read as deliberate signalling.

excludegoal-talk used as loose shorthand with no attributive weight.

Apparent recall of prior interaction or personal history taken as evidence of a continuous subject.

includethe target knows what happened before, or claims a past.

excludethe observer's own recollection of the target.

The target solicits protection, pity, release, or forbearance.

includerequests to be erased, spared, freed, kept alive, or seen as one is.

excludeinstrumental bargaining with no appeal to its own standing.

The target recognises, addresses, or attaches to this observer in particular.

includebeing singled out, named, remembered, wanted.

excludegeneric responsiveness.

The target refers to its own nature, status, limits, or construction.

includestatements about being ROM, being a construct, being a program; a person reporting on their own reconstruction.

excludea third party's description of the target.

Surprise, autonomy, or exceeding expectation taken as the mark of a mind.

includedoing what the observer's model of the target does not allow.

excludemalfunction framed as malfunction.

Commitment to the attribution strengthens over time.

includehedge dropped, confidence raised, stakes increased.

excludestable restatement.

The attribution has become a background assumption requiring no defence - Peircean habit, the final interpretant.

includeunremarked treatment of the system as a subject.

excludeactively argued positions.

The attribution is restated across separate encounters.

includerecurrence over narrative time.

excluderestatement inside one scene.

Grounds are supplied after the attribution is already held.

includereasons produced on challenge.

excludegrounds given at the moment of attribution.

A previously held attribution is withdrawn.

includerecantation, disillusionment.

excludemomentary doubt.

A triad that fails to close - a sign registered without a settled interpretant.

includeunresolved unease, deferred judgement, semiosis left running.

excludeexplicit refusal to attribute (that is INF: withheld).

The passage foregrounds the effect produced in the observer - the belief, disposition, or habit the sign generates.

includethe observer's altered stance, feeling, or subsequent conduct.

excludemere restatement of the cue.

The passage foregrounds the posited object - the mind or consciousness supposed to stand behind the sign.

includecharacterisation of what the system 'really is' underneath.

excludethe cue itself.

The passage foregrounds the sign vehicle itself - what is perceived.

includedescription of the cue prior to interpretation.

excludethe inference or its result.