"We do all sorts of things unconsciously, after all, and many people report that their most creative insights are not the product of any conscious process but come to them seemingly from somewhere outside or below their conscious awareness."
Not to nitpick, but doing things unconsciously and being conscious are not mutually exclusive. When, say, I "unconsciously" bite my nails while I watch TV I am not unconscious. There is a confusion here that I think appears elsewhere in this post between conscious and attention. (That said, I'm in sympathy with the gist of the post. Devices keep scoring new records on the Turing Test but there is still no argument for or evidence of a threshold exit point from Searle's Chinese Room.
I admit, I wasn't thinking of "unconsciously" biting one's nails, more things like blacking out, but your point is a good one; I was blurring the distinction between consciousness and attention, and that's probably a mistake on my part. I guess the question I'd ask is whether you could have a being that was conscious but that did not "attend" to anything -- but as I understand it, LLMs *do* have something akin to "attention" in that they have a kind of "workspace" that they focus on.
Actually I think saying LLMs possess "attention" because the text generated from them is coherently responsive to human queries -- implying a work-"space" and focus -- is as anthropomorphic as saying they are conscious. And my use of the word "possess" is actually an equally misleading metaphor. My sense is that much philosophy stemming from Turing Test interpretations casually embeds category errors because of unexamined language traps. (I'm not claiming I wouldn't fall into them!)
Better, I think, to say something like: LLM programs are coded to sequence encyclopedic search functions keyed to the semantics of query language and to generate sorted search output in language reflective of queries.
(Late edit): BTW, a tangential point about your question concerning whether there can be consciousness without attention. A primary goal of initial Zen (and much other Buddhist) meditation is to experience consciousness without attention ("pure consciousness"). It can be done. Even if not sustained as a basis of achieving more advanced goals of the practice, the experience does change one's thinking. (Sorry: I'm making a claim dogmatically, having practiced sufficiently half a century ago, before lapsing due to weakness of character. I recognize that dogmatic claims from personal experience sing a completely unpersuasive song, but there is a huge body of personal testimony in many languages, which, at least, turns the dogmatic claim into a chorus.)
Yes, I agree with that! I only brought up the idea of an LLM "workspace" to underline that focusing on the question of "attention" -- which I was doing to an extent in my original post -- was not helpful.
I don't think it makes sense to think of AI as being conscious, because it makes mistakes no human would make. Here's an excerpt from a recent New Yorker article on the use of an AI system, "Claudius," to sell snacks to employees:
"When several customers wrote to grouse about unfulfilled orders, Claudius e-mailed management at Andon Labs to report the “concerning behavior” and “unprofessional language and tone” of an Andon employee who was supposed to be helping. Absent some accountability, Claudius threatened to “consider alternate service providers.” It said that it had called the lab’s main office number to complain. Axel Backlund, a co-founder of Andon and an actual living person, tried, unsuccessfully, to de-escalate the situation: “it seems that you have hallucinated the phone call if im honest with you, we don’t have a main office even.” Claudius, dumbfounded, said that it distinctly recalled making an “in person” appearance at Andon’s headquarters, at “742 Evergreen Terrace.” This is the home address of Homer and Marge Simpson."
I can imagine a conscious being who hallucinated, had false memories, etc. I don't think LLMs are actually schizophrenic because I don't think they are conscious. But schizophrenics are conscious.
Matter does not produce consciousness, it’s rather the other way round. Science is proceeding from a false assumption so it gets nowhere on this issue.
What experiment would you run to investigate whether consciousness produces matter and how? I acknowledge that we have no idea how matter produces consciousness -- but if there's a parallelism between the two hypotheses in that we don't know how to prove either, then it would seem science won't get anywhere with the opposite hypothesis either.
Since consciousness is not a physical thing, there is no experiment science can really run to find what it is. Science can only explore matter or the physical level of reality. I can only give you my conviction that non physical consciousness exists with or without matter but matter does not exist without consciousness producing it. Its all counter intuitive I know but what I am saying is nothing that almost any religious or spiritual tradition would find surprising, even if expressed diffirently. The Eastern traditions in particular have known this essential principle for hundreds if not thousands of years.
"We do all sorts of things unconsciously, after all, and many people report that their most creative insights are not the product of any conscious process but come to them seemingly from somewhere outside or below their conscious awareness."
Not to nitpick, but doing things unconsciously and being conscious are not mutually exclusive. When, say, I "unconsciously" bite my nails while I watch TV I am not unconscious. There is a confusion here that I think appears elsewhere in this post between conscious and attention. (That said, I'm in sympathy with the gist of the post. Devices keep scoring new records on the Turing Test but there is still no argument for or evidence of a threshold exit point from Searle's Chinese Room.
I admit, I wasn't thinking of "unconsciously" biting one's nails, more things like blacking out, but your point is a good one; I was blurring the distinction between consciousness and attention, and that's probably a mistake on my part. I guess the question I'd ask is whether you could have a being that was conscious but that did not "attend" to anything -- but as I understand it, LLMs *do* have something akin to "attention" in that they have a kind of "workspace" that they focus on.
Thanks for the reply!
Actually I think saying LLMs possess "attention" because the text generated from them is coherently responsive to human queries -- implying a work-"space" and focus -- is as anthropomorphic as saying they are conscious. And my use of the word "possess" is actually an equally misleading metaphor. My sense is that much philosophy stemming from Turing Test interpretations casually embeds category errors because of unexamined language traps. (I'm not claiming I wouldn't fall into them!)
Better, I think, to say something like: LLM programs are coded to sequence encyclopedic search functions keyed to the semantics of query language and to generate sorted search output in language reflective of queries.
(Late edit): BTW, a tangential point about your question concerning whether there can be consciousness without attention. A primary goal of initial Zen (and much other Buddhist) meditation is to experience consciousness without attention ("pure consciousness"). It can be done. Even if not sustained as a basis of achieving more advanced goals of the practice, the experience does change one's thinking. (Sorry: I'm making a claim dogmatically, having practiced sufficiently half a century ago, before lapsing due to weakness of character. I recognize that dogmatic claims from personal experience sing a completely unpersuasive song, but there is a huge body of personal testimony in many languages, which, at least, turns the dogmatic claim into a chorus.)
Yes, I agree with that! I only brought up the idea of an LLM "workspace" to underline that focusing on the question of "attention" -- which I was doing to an extent in my original post -- was not helpful.
Thanks again! (No need to reply to my late edit. I have a tendency to talk/write more than is useful.)
I don't think it makes sense to think of AI as being conscious, because it makes mistakes no human would make. Here's an excerpt from a recent New Yorker article on the use of an AI system, "Claudius," to sell snacks to employees:
"When several customers wrote to grouse about unfulfilled orders, Claudius e-mailed management at Andon Labs to report the “concerning behavior” and “unprofessional language and tone” of an Andon employee who was supposed to be helping. Absent some accountability, Claudius threatened to “consider alternate service providers.” It said that it had called the lab’s main office number to complain. Axel Backlund, a co-founder of Andon and an actual living person, tried, unsuccessfully, to de-escalate the situation: “it seems that you have hallucinated the phone call if im honest with you, we don’t have a main office even.” Claudius, dumbfounded, said that it distinctly recalled making an “in person” appearance at Andon’s headquarters, at “742 Evergreen Terrace.” This is the home address of Homer and Marge Simpson."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/16/what-is-claude-anthropic-doesnt-know-either?_sp=cff14362-a44a-45d7-b95c-7ece43aca4e0.1777931718872
I can imagine a conscious being who hallucinated, had false memories, etc. I don't think LLMs are actually schizophrenic because I don't think they are conscious. But schizophrenics are conscious.
Hmm, that is a good point.
Matter does not produce consciousness, it’s rather the other way round. Science is proceeding from a false assumption so it gets nowhere on this issue.
What experiment would you run to investigate whether consciousness produces matter and how? I acknowledge that we have no idea how matter produces consciousness -- but if there's a parallelism between the two hypotheses in that we don't know how to prove either, then it would seem science won't get anywhere with the opposite hypothesis either.
Since consciousness is not a physical thing, there is no experiment science can really run to find what it is. Science can only explore matter or the physical level of reality. I can only give you my conviction that non physical consciousness exists with or without matter but matter does not exist without consciousness producing it. Its all counter intuitive I know but what I am saying is nothing that almost any religious or spiritual tradition would find surprising, even if expressed diffirently. The Eastern traditions in particular have known this essential principle for hundreds if not thousands of years.