> Before getting too deep we need a working definition of consciousness. This is a tricky concept to define rigorously since it seems that a rigorous definition of consciousness practically requires a theory of consciousness itself. To make matters worse, in these kinds of discussions it oftentimes gets mingled with related ideas like self-awareness, intelligence, and executive function. But in this post I am interested only in consciousness as a sort of perception or sentience — an awareness of being, or, more loosely, “what it feels like to be something.”

I'm not sure this definition succeeds in distinguishing consciousness from some mixture of perception and self-awareness, both of which machines running programs can have.

Maybe defining consciousness is difficult because we don't really understand what we mean by it, and our attempts to make claims about it are more flimsy and baseless than we like to believe.

The "what it is like to be a bat" stuff doesn't illuminate the matter at all. It just elevates the figure of speech "what it is like" to an illusion of philosophical rigor.