# Contested concept: viable theory of consciousness

_**What you are reading**: one contested-concept page in Deliberus's deliberation graph. Deliberus maps human reasoning — including claims that are contested, mistaken, or extreme — so that disagreement can be examined precisely. A claim's presence here is not an endorsement: the graph records that someone argued it, how it connects to other reasoning, and how far scrutiny has gotten. The metadata on this page describes the state of that scrutiny, not the truth of the claim._

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- **Contestedness**: criterion
- **Diagnosis**: The disagreement over whether LLMs are conscious is a disagreement over methodological standards of evidence and theory-acceptance, not just over facts about LLMs.
- **Canonical**: `/concept/viable theory of consciousness` (data: `/concept/viable theory of consciousness.json`)

## Senses in use
- **A theory must be falsifiable and non-trivial and map internal activity to specific experiences, so it is not satisfied by input/output behavior alone** — used in 6 claim(s)
- **Most theories are pre-paradigmatic metaphors that give category errors when applied beyond the human brain** — used in 4 claim(s)
- **Existing functional or structural theories (GWT, Predictive Processing) are sufficient to suggest serious AI consciousness possibility** — used in 2 claim(s)

## Claims using this term
- [Some, like David Chalmers and co-authors in “Taking AI Welfare Seriously,” think these [major theories of consciousness, such as Global Wor…](/claim/claim_09033db85856.md) _(sense: Existing functional or structural theories (GWT, Predictive Processing) are sufficient to suggest serious AI consciousness possibility)_
- [In retrospect most theories of consciousness are more like pre-paradigmatic metaphors or sketches of theories.](/claim/claim_13b732561952.md) _(sense: Most theories are pre-paradigmatic metaphors that give category errors when applied beyond the human brain)_
- [There is no falsifiable and non-trivial theory of consciousness that [the LLMs on the planet of LLMs] could ever experimentally prove.](/claim/claim_1c224996cbb6.md) _(sense: A theory must be falsifiable and non-trivial and map internal activity to specific experiences, so it is not satisfied by input/output behavior alone)_
- [Taking such results [of applying theories of consciousness to systems like the United States or a game NPC] at face value ends up being, de…](/claim/claim_280b6ba9954c.md) _(sense: Most theories are pre-paradigmatic metaphors that give category errors when applied beyond the human brain)_
- [Applying some of the major [theories of consciousness] to contemporary AI, like Global Workspace Theory or Predictive Processing, is an ong…](/claim/claim_3f6cea4fa508.md) _(sense: Existing functional or structural theories (GWT, Predictive Processing) are sufficient to suggest serious AI consciousness possibility)_
- [Applying theories of consciousness to LLMs does not give us much information.](/claim/claim_50a2dff017d1.md) _(sense: Most theories are pre-paradigmatic metaphors that give category errors when applied beyond the human brain)_
- [[A theory of consciousness for which the input/output function is enough] is also unfalsifiable (since a theory's predictions are about beh…](/claim/claim_55d1b2d17c56.md) _(sense: A theory must be falsifiable and non-trivial and map internal activity to specific experiences, so it is not satisfied by input/output behavior alone)_
- [Hypothetical theories that grant LLM consciousness could never escape from these issues [triviality and unfalsifiability]. There is no viab…](/claim/claim_9943d51ea60b.md) _(sense: A theory must be falsifiable and non-trivial and map internal activity to specific experiences, so it is not satisfied by input/output behavior alone)_
- [All but a handful of theories of consciousness were never designed to be applied beyond the human brain.](/claim/claim_aeb7a0af46a7.md) _(sense: Most theories are pre-paradigmatic metaphors that give category errors when applied beyond the human brain)_
- [Following this line of reasoning [that applies arguments like the layer-shaving argument to theories] is the main way the author has propos…](/claim/claim_df46bac7d160.md) _(sense: A theory must be falsifiable and non-trivial and map internal activity to specific experiences, so it is not satisfied by input/output behavior alone)_
- [A theory of consciousness should map internal activations to specific experiences, explaining why this particular internal activity (like s…](/claim/claim_e374b3468906.md) _(sense: A theory must be falsifiable and non-trivial and map internal activity to specific experiences, so it is not satisfied by input/output behavior alone)_
- [If the input/output function is enough [for a theory of LLM consciousness], then the theory of consciousness is scientifically trivial, in …](/claim/claim_f4dfec8e6439.md) _(sense: A theory must be falsifiable and non-trivial and map internal activity to specific experiences, so it is not satisfied by input/output behavior alone)_