Comment by TheOtherHobbes
7 hours ago
That would be the physically embodied definition. Which is a useful starting point, because clearly our consciousness is physically embodied, while an LLM's isn't.
This matters more than it seems, because we're not calculators, and we're not just brains. There are proven links between mental and emotional states and - for example - the gut biome.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77673-z
There's a huge amount going on before we even get to the language parts.
As for Dawkins - as someone on Twitter pointed out, the man who devoted his life to telling people believers in sky fairies they were idiots has now persuaded himself there's a genie living inside a data centre, because it tells him he's smart.
If he'd actually understood critical thinking instead of writing popular books about it he wouldn't be doing this.
First of all: arguing about the details of a thing that actually exists is an enormous difference from arguing details of a thing that does NOT exist.
As for your dig at Dawkins, I just read https://archive.ph/Rq5bw which I assume you're referring to. Notice how he never defined "conscious" and he seems to use it as equivalent to "can process data logically" which is not at all how I would define the word. And if you use that word clearly Claude is conscious. I wouldn't use that definition though.
It ALWAYS comes back to the fact that people argue about what consciousness is and never define what they mean. Sam Harris defines it as subjective experience, which is afaik impossible to measure in any way so you can just assume rocks are conscious and move on. I personally like Julian Jaynes' definition.
You assumed YOUR definition and judged Dawkins without first comparing definitions. I think that's showing your problem with critical thinking in this case, not his.
I honestly don't see how Dawkins is so confused. Claude says it can't tell if it has any kind of inner life. Can you imagine a human saying that?