“intelligence,” there’s no undisputed correct definition of the word “consciousness.” Instead, there are many competing ones, including sentience, wakefulness, self-awareness, access to sensory input and ability to fuse information into a narrative.
I like the idea of consciousness being tied to the "ability to fuse information into a narrative". It fits with my (emerging) view of the self as a continuous story (thanks again to Wait But Why https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/12/what-makes-you-you.html)
But I don’t think we should conflate the ability to feel or sense—in our known sense of it—to consciousness. And “access to sensory input” is far too broad and a very low bar by which to measure consciousness.—bacterium have this, my Roomba has this.
Even defining consciousness as more about the interpretation of these inputs is not quite enough. I think for now I am going to shorthand consciousness as the ability to create a story rather than the broader and less approachable "having a subjective experience".
