Cosmic Copernican Principle: Consciousness Might Not Be Earthbound

A new paper by Eric Schwitzgebel and Jeremy Pober argues consciousness could be substrate-flexible, arising in non-Earthly materials, and coins the term Copernican principle of consciousness to challenge Earth-centric views; while it does not prove alien minds exist or silicon minds qualify, it reframes the question as what kinds of systems can wake up at all and notes implications for AI and the search for non-biological minds.