I think there's a sort of definitional sleight of hand going on here, a type that I see often these days: 1. [Word A] means [Concept X] to most people. 2. [Co

I think there's a sort of definitional sleight of hand going on here, a type that I see often these days: 1. [Word A] means [Concept X] to most people. 2. [Concept X] doesn't apply to [Item K], but [Concept Y] does. 3. By creating a new definition, finding an obscure definition, or twisting a current definition I can argue that [Word A] technically can mean [Concept Y], and then apply the term to [Item K]. 4. Now that I'm using [Word A] for [Item K], most people will associate [Item K] with [Concept X]. So when we say "consciousness," most people conjure up some concept about human like thought and communication. That's the reason why most people find the word compelling, and it obviously (almost by definition) doesn't apply to most of the stuff talked about in this article. When coming across arguments that rely on this type of sleight of hand, I think it's best to ask yourself what the article would actually be saying if the loaded term was replaced by another term or phrase that makes it explicitly clear what the other means. So when the author of this article writes something like this: > This is utterly frigid, hundreds of degrees colder than any temperature terrestrial organisms can survive. But the fact that the temperature is non-zero implies a corresponding tiny amount of heat in deep space. This of course implies a corresponding tiny amount of experience. It seems that he's arguing that consciousness is experience and experience is any activity, even at the atomic level. So if we remove the sleight of hand and ask "Is there some level of activity, even sleight activity at the atomic level, everywhere?" The answer might be affirmative (if we're using a loose sense of the word "everywhere"), but it's not a particularly surprising or even interesting question to answer.