The hydranencephalic people in that paper do indeed exhibit certain behaviors that we intuitively associate with consciousness. But it’s equally true that deep-RL agents & LLMs exhibit certain behaviors that we intuitively associate with consciousness. So is this paper “evidence towards the idea that consciousness without a cortex can occur”? Yeah sure, but I don’t think it’s strong evidence. (More of my opinions here.)
The hydranencephalic people in that paper do indeed exhibit certain behaviors that we intuitively associate with consciousness. But it’s equally true that deep-RL agents & LLMs exhibit certain behaviors that we intuitively associate with consciousness. So is this paper “evidence towards the idea that consciousness without a cortex can occur”? Yeah sure, but I don’t think it’s strong evidence. (More of my opinions here.)
What is evidence of consciousness, then?