[fasteddie31003]

Maybe consciousness just does not exist. Could it be that humans invented it to feel superior to animals, but it does not really exist? I wonder if we will think of the word "consciousness" in the same way we think of the word "aether" in the future.

[GuB-42]

Consciousness exists by definition. It is a subjective experience and you are experiencing it.

Or more precisely I am experiencing it, but since you are, I think, a human just like me, with a brain and biology very similar to mine, I assume that you must experience consciousness too.

And that is the big question, and one that science may never have an answer to. What is conscious and what is not? The only consciousness I know exists is mine, the rest is just guessing based on similarities. Other humans: almost certainly conscious, higher intelligence life forms: probably conscious, plants: probably not conscious, rocks: almost certainly not conscious, LLMs: ???

LLMs are unusual in that they have a very human-like behavior, more than anything non human, which would make them a good candidate for having consciousness, but on a material level, they are more like rocks, which point them as not being conscious.

[DanHulton]

There’s certainly a debate as to whether animals are conscious or not, and if we’ve just been engaging in a kind of human chauvinism all this time, but I mean consciousness definitely exists. There’s an “I” in here that perceives, and it’s reasonable to extrapolate that I’m not particularly special, that others that have the same parts as me have the same properties (consciousness).

[palmotea]

> Maybe consciousness just does not exist. Could it be that humans invented it to feel superior to animals, but it does not really exist? I wonder if we will think of the word "consciousness" in the same way we think of the word "aether" in the future.

That's just lame, motivated denialism.

[brotchie]

If consciousness didn’t exist, you wouldn’t exist! you’d have no interior experience.

[Dependance]

How do you know they have one ?

[kelseyfrog]

I lack a subjective experience and have no interiority.

Watch this. They won't even believe you if report your own internal state. They'll even claim they have epistemic authority over your own interiority while not granting you the same authority over their internal state.

[wolvesechoes]

Wittgenstein dealt with that.