[MarkusQ]

If LLMs did not process language as well as they do, we would not be having the argument.

The only reason we are having the argument at all is that people see LLMs responding appropriately to language, and _from_that_ conclude that LLMs may be conscious. You even sneak this in yourself when you say "George Lemoine and Richard Dawkins didn't base their judgments on consciousness on such an entailment, but rather on the specifics of what the LLMs said to them" -- in other words, they wouldn't have had judgements in the first place if the LLMs had not "said things to them".