As a pragmatist, I’m willing to assume anything that’s indistinguishable from a conscious being is indeed conscious. In other words, understanding how a robot’s

As a pragmatist, I’m willing to assume anything that’s indistinguishable from a conscious being is indeed conscious. In other words, understanding how a robot’s brain works does not preclude said brain from harbouring true consciousness—otherwise, studying our own brains would be a kind of very slow intellectual suicide.