It’s a compound, multi-layered phenomenon. I won’t recall this perfectly, but psychologist Gregg Henrique [0] breaks it down into something like: - qualia: exp

It’s a compound, multi-layered phenomenon. I won’t recall this perfectly, but psychologist Gregg Henrique [0] breaks it down into something like: - qualia: experiencing the taste of chocolate or the color of red (arguably the hardest part of the “hard problem”) - sentience: recursive awareness of awareness (Hofstadter’s “strange loop”) - agency: acting and reacting in an iterative, goal-oriented feedback loop - narrative identity: the sense of being a self, with a continuity between moments - rationality: the ability to reason/explain/justify about choices (before or after) I don’t think that’s comprehensive; and it’s conceivable that other intelligences (plant, animal, machine) might have some characteristics and not others, and/or of radically different qualitative nature. Asking merely if something “is” “conscious” is grossly insufficient. [0] https://overcast.fm/+S_7eCatnU https://overcast.fm/+S_7eCatnU