[D-Machine]

But with "consciousness" we don't have even a stipulative definition, more like 40 different competing definitions (https://philpapers.org/rec/VIMMAT) which are in many cases only loosely related, and generally are talking about very different things. When the situation is this bad, I am skeptical you can make scientific progress.

[raincom]

Stipulative definition is all about fixing the reference. Or if we want to use the talk of meaning, it is abou the extension/denotation. If 100 people fix the reference of the word 'consciousness' to 100 different things, it just means that these people are engaging in philosophical discussions without having any object level theories (theories from neuroscience, etc).

If 10 different scientists who work at the object level, using the same word but with a different reference, then we have 10 different theories about different phenomena. This is what we need today: more research, not philosophical discussions.