The only definition of "conscious" that makes any sense to me is "self-awareness". The problem is that is just kicking the can down the road. What is "self-awareness"?
I don't think that's obvious. That's the question I was alluding to. What is self-awareness?
I build robots as a hobby. My robots are aware of their their environment and their place in it. In that sense, they're "self-aware" but nobody would argue they're conscious.
The underlying problem is that we have all these words that imply a precision that doesn't exist. All we can say for certain is that consciousness and self-awareness are effects we experience. Beyond that, all bets are off. We can't even really say what these things actually are.
