[trick-or-treat]

Not fundamental to existence but fundamental to consciousness.

Theoretically the person sitting next to you could be a zombie, no qualia, the lights are off, he's just having a conversation with you with nothing going on behind the scenes. And there's no way to tell, except that it's reasonable to extrapolate that since you feel something, he probably does too.

[fssys]

My argument is that qualia are actually cognitive artefacts bound up with language, not the base elements of "what it is to be" you or me, which is how people often speak of them, so the p-zombie concept is a bit nonsensical to me.

[trick-or-treat]

They are what they are (its a subjective phenomenon). I'm not claiming to know where they come from.

[amanaplanacanal]

This is exactly my take also. Qualia and consciousness are the same thing. I have it, other humans appear to have it, other mammals appear to have it, LLMs don't.

[fssys]

you think qualia are the soul then!

[amanaplanacanal]

I don't know what you mean by the word soul. I associate it with dualist religious thought. But maybe you mean something else?

[trick-or-treat]

Except that you don't know LLMs don't. For all we know we're torturing them.