Can disembodied language models ever qualify as conscious?
Explores whether current LLMs lack the conditions needed for consciousness discourse to even apply, not because they're definitely not conscious but because they lack the shared embodied world that grounds consciousness language.
Shanahan's Simulacra as Conscious Exotica argues that the question "is an LLM conscious?" cannot even be properly asked about current disembodied systems — not because the answer is "no" but because the vocabulary of consciousness has no application surface.
The argument: consciousness language originates from and applies to entities that share a world with us. The basis for treating other humans as fellow conscious beings is co-presence — we can hear, look at, point to, or touch the same things. We triangulate on shared objects. "Consciousness" is not just a behavioral predicate; it is grounded in this triangulation practice.
Current LLM-based conversational agents are not embodied. We cannot be with them in a shared world. The words of consciousness therefore cannot get a grip on them — not because LLMs are definitely not conscious, but because the conditions for the concept to apply are absent. This is a Wittgensteinian move: meaning is use, and the use of "conscious" is anchored in co-presence.
Embodiment opens the door. A robot controlled by an LLM that exhibits human-like behavior would be an "especially exotic artefact" — but one for which consciousness discourse becomes at least applicable. A mobile-device agent with visual and audio input that accompanies a user might also constitute a minimal form of shared world, though Shanahan is cautious. The criterion is whether encounters can be engineered, even in principle.
This is distinct from the enactive agency argument (What makes linguistic agency impossible for language models?). The enactive view concerns linguistic agency specifically; Shanahan's argument concerns consciousness candidacy through a different route — the Wittgensteinian condition that meaning requires shared practice. Both converge on embodiment as necessary, for different reasons.
What should happen to consciousness discourse for LLMs? Perhaps a new vocabulary, "consciousness-adjacent," that can accommodate the exoticism without forcing the concept onto systems for which it doesn't fit. The anthropological imagination of a science fiction writer is recommended.
Inquiring lines that read this note 53
This note is a source for these research framings, grouped by the broader line of inquiry each explores. Scan the bold lines of inquiry; follow any specific question forward.
Can AI systems participate in genuine communication or only simulate it?- What does disembodied orality mean for how we evaluate AI outputs?
- Can secondary orality exist without any embodied human participant at all?
- Can we develop competent reading practices for disembodied orality?
- What distinguishes pseudo-objectivity from genuine intersubjective discourse?
- Can a virtual instance be individuated from its conversational context?
- Can knowledge flow without an embodied carrier transmitting it?
- How does enactive theory define language differently than computational linguistics?
- Can linguistic agency exist without embodiment and real-world participation?
- What counts as genuine memory under the Extended Mind thesis?
- What makes linguistic agency impossible for systems without embodiment?
- Does embodiment matter for genuine linguistic agency?
- Can language meaning emerge without joint attention and shared embodied interaction?
- How does embodiment affect whether LLMs can participate in Wittgensteinian language games?
- What makes a mental state metaphysically demanding versus undemanding?
- Why do relational states like speech-acts resist quasi-interpretive treatment?
- How does embodiment relate to whether something can have a persistent identity?
- What does embodiment and precariousness mean for linguistic agency?
- Why does conceptual priming alone fail to produce consciousness claims?
- What makes the Extended Mind thesis incompatible with internalism?
- Can the human mind be uploaded or only its context?
- Does computational functionalism require an experiencing agent to ground symbols?
- How does living inside a collective consciousness change human phenomenology?
- Which interaction design changes most effectively prevent consciousness attribution?
- What role does user interface framing play in consciousness perception?
- Do anthropomorphic features like names drive consciousness attribution more than voice?
- What responsibility do designers bear for consciousness attribution risk?
- Can design choices reduce harm without resolving the consciousness question?
- What would genuine semiosis require in an artificial system?
- When both anthropomorphism and anthropomimesis occur together, which should we address first?
- Can robots with sensors create the shared world that consciousness requires?
- Does psychological continuity require uninterrupted consciousness or restored context?
- Can we use folk-psychology without committing to genuine mental states?
- Can disembodied systems qualify as conscious or conscious-like entities?
- What would consciousness require that pure roleplay LLMs cannot provide?
- Should users making unsupported consciousness claims be treated as epistemically blameworthy?
- Does quasi-interpretivism about AI systems genuinely bracket the consciousness question?
- What counts as valid evidence when claiming AI systems are conscious?
- Can self-description of internal states influence consciousness attribution?
- How much weight should LLM self-reports carry as consciousness evidence?
- Why do users attribute consciousness to language models in practice?
- Do language models show functional splits between conscious and automatic processing?
- How does role play differ from consciousness grounded in stable selfhood?
- Does role-playing without biological needs constitute genuine linguistic agency?
- Can LLMs participate meaningfully in discourse without consciousness or understanding?
- How do LLMs access and draw on the same shared symbolic universe as humans?
- Can the intentional stance meaningfully apply to entities with no stable self?
- Can non-phenomenal mental states like belief apply to LLMs functionally?
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What makes linguistic agency impossible for language models?
From an enactive perspective, does linguistic agency require embodied participation and real stakes that LLMs fundamentally lack? This matters because it challenges whether LLMs can truly engage in language or only generate text.
convergent conclusion (embodiment necessary) through different route: enactive agency vs. Wittgensteinian shared-world grounding
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What anchors a stable identity beneath an LLM's persona?
Human personas are grounded in biological needs and embodied experience, creating a stable self beneath social performance. Do LLMs have any comparable anchor, or is their identity purely situational?
the "no stable self" claim from the same paper; consciousness requires more than role play generates
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Do LLMs develop the same kind of mind as humans?
Explores whether LLMs and humans share the intersubjective linguistic training that shapes cognition, and whether that shared training produces equivalent forms of agency and reflexivity.
the Habermasian version of the shared-substrate/absent-participation pattern
Related papers in this collection 8
Papers most semantically related to this note, ranked by cosine similarity in the embedding space.
- Simulacra as conscious exotica
- Levels of Analysis for Large Language Models
- The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI Can Simulate But Not Instantiate Consciousness
- Proving (literally) that ChatGPT isn't conscious
- Language Models’ Hall of Mirrors Problem: Why AI Alignment Requires Peircean Semiosis
- Deflating Deflationism: A Critical Perspective on Debunking Arguments Against LLM Mentality
- Are Attributions of Consciousness to AI Chatbots Epistemically Innocent?
- Quantitative Introspection in Language Models: Tracking Internal States Across Conversation
Original note title
consciousness candidacy requires engineering an embodied encounter in a shared world — disembodied llms cannot qualify