Thought experiment. An entity is conscious if: - it has external inputs and a facility for creating a symbolized account of them, - it has a facility that st

Thought experiment. An entity is conscious if: - it has external inputs and a facility for creating a symbolized account of them, - it has a facility that stores these accounts, - it can order those accounts roughly by time, - it can place or relate a symbol representing itself in these accounts. The quality of consciousness varies widely, a program that has an object that references itself and can do the above things is very technically conscious but likely nowhere near to the depth of a human being.