Maybe when the system can generate its own state, rather than that state existing as a deterministic output of its inputs, maybe then we can consider it to have

Maybe when the system can generate its own state, rather than that state existing as a deterministic output of its inputs, maybe then we can consider it to have the interiority and reflexiveness required to call something 'thought'. A very convincing simulation of thought is not thought, especially without memory or any evidence of an independent will. LLMs have the same kind of consciousness as a nematode, albeit with less-complex behaviour.