-The curious case of aphantasia. When an individual perceives an apple (left), they experience both the primary features of the apple, as while also anticipating the crunch the apple will make when they bite into it. In the case of imagination (middle), an individual can perceive a weaker visual experience of an apple, and also anticipate its crunchiness. In the case of aphantasia (right), the individual has no phenomenal visual experience of the apple, yet is still capable of anticipating the crunchiness.

-The curious case of aphantasia. When an individual perceives an apple (left), they experience both the primary features of the apple, as while also anticipating the crunch the apple will make when they bite into it. In the case of imagination (middle), an individual can perceive a weaker visual experience of an apple, and also anticipate its crunchiness. In the case of aphantasia (right), the individual has no phenomenal visual experience of the apple, yet is still capable of anticipating the crunchiness.

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Interactions with large language models have led to the suggestion that these models may be conscious. From the perspective of neuroscience, this position is difficult to defend. For one, the architecture of large language models is missing key features of the thalamocortical system that have been linked to conscious awareness in mammals. Secondly,...

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... and hence don't have any reason to care about the implications of their actions. In toto, we believe that these three arguments make it extremely unlikely that LLMs, in their current form, have the capacity for phenomenal consciousness, but rather represent sophisticated simulacra that echo the signatures of cognitive aspects of consciousness (Fig. 4), filtered as it is through the language we use to communicate with one another ...