Bringing this here from another thread:
@Der_Trihs consider the ontogeny of consciousness. As discussed above the issue is of how and when consciousness emerges from sometime before birth to a full narrative self, able to plan, to lie, to make up stories, to love. Is it for humans developing something that exists or doesn’t, a switch that flips on? Or is a newborn conscious but in some different way than a verbal four year old is?
Does a chimpanzee have consciousness? If it does is it the same degree and type as ours? A whale?
When psychedelics cause “ego dissolution,” the feeling of no self but one with the world but with intense experiences, is there consciousness? How about electrical stimulation induced out of body experiences?
I agree that just as an adult human mind can be “more conscious” (and certainly differently conscious) than a 34 week gestation premature baby is, an alien to us superintelligence, be it machine or other, could theoretically be “more conscious”, and differently conscious, than we are. But our experience of consciousness cannot be explained to a nine month old human, or to a whale. And we cannot understand what it feels like to be them … even though we all were nine month old humans.
Or theoretically the superintelligence can never have consciousness at all of any sort even if it acts the part.