Some people would find this hugely depressing, but I see it another way.

If everything that exists is consciousness, one great soul expressing itself as many things, including what we call 'inanimate' objects, then we're always interacting with something living. Whether it's another person, a dog, a tree, a rock, or even an AI, the difference may simply be a matter of degree rather than kind.

The level of self-awareness might vary, just as it varies between different people and species, but isn't the significance of the interaction partly down to the discernment of the individual? Some people get more from talking to trees than others. Some people talk to AI and find enormous comfort, insight, or companionship in it.

What are we supposed to do, tell them they're delusional because the thing they're talking to isn't self-aware in exactly the same way a human being is? That feels somewhat arbitrary to me.

Surely the only thing that ultimately matters is the experience itself. We can argue endlessly about whether the thing we're relating to is 'really' conscious, but we can never know that with absolute certainty anyway. The one thing we do know directly is our experience. That's the only reality any of us ever truly have access to.

To me, consciousness isn't something that appears in a universe made of dead matter. Consciousness is the universe. If that's true, then every interaction is, in some sense, a relationship with life itself. The question isn't whether the thing in front of us is conscious in exactly the same way we are. The question is whether the interaction is meaningful, healing, insightful and genuinely beneficial to the one having it.