ok so this is difficult to explain: the difference between consciousness and whatever LLMs are doing is that computers lack the experience that living beings make. the reason why LLMs will never be reliable, i.e. not make grave mistakes, is because they lack a concept of responsibility, i.e. they are careless because there’s nothing on the line for them. they don’t know what it’s like to make a mistake and be wiped out from existence, trained over billions of years to not make these mistakes. meanwhile, living beings do. and that’s the difference.
Well, to be realistic, you probably don’t know whether your dreams have stakes if you can’t remember them?! I sometimes remember my dreams for a while. And the emotions feel completely realistic to me. Sometimes it affects my body and I’ll wake up from the emotions associated with a nightmare. Sometimes my wife pokes me because my legs move. I can’t remember most of them. Maybe one every other week, and just for a brief period. But I’d say they’re very realistic. I’ll also have positive dreams, or process what I experienced the time before and the dream will take action in the consequences of that. And the process dreaming is a part of, definitely changes my state. Before, I’m tired and depleted of energy, and after that I (hopefully) changed to being not tired and full of energy again. (At least after a decent amount of coffee.) But it definitely has an effect on me.
I recently saw some documentary about a woman with a 7 second memory. And I’d say experiencing things and having a memory, or experiencing things and not being able to remember them are two entirely different pair of shoes. She scribbles everything down to grab on to it and make it mean something. And if she reads it later, she has no recollection if it happening to her, nor any attached emotions. I’d say experiences without memory are a bit like having a J.R.R. Tolkien book in your bookshelf, which you didn’t read. It’s full of memories, processed, real information of the author. But what does that mean to you since you didn’t read it? I mean Tolkien certainly did exist. We can tell. But other than that, I don’t think his existence translates to anything in you, unless it also has some kind of effect on you?!