I don't see why consciousness is necessary for thinking. I would define thinking as the ability to evaluate propositions and evidence and arrive at some potent

I don't see why consciousness is necessary for thinking. I would define thinking as the ability to evaluate propositions and evidence and arrive at some potentially useful plan or hypothesis. I see no reason why a machine could not do this, but without any awareness ("consciousness") of itself doing it. I also see no fundamental obstacle to true machine awareness either, but given your other responses, we can just disagree on that.