Somebody used this paper to make the term batfished, which they defined as being fooled into ascribing subjectivity to a non-sentient actor (i.e. an AI).
https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2025/06/30/what-is-it-like...
replies(3):
https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2025/06/30/what-is-it-like...
The author inventing "batfished" also believes bats to be conscious, so it seems a very poorly conceived word, and anyways unnecessary since anthropomorphize works just fine... "You've just gaslighted yourself by anthropomorphizing the AI".
Someone conscious is able to choose how they want to behave and then behave that way. For example I can choose to be kind or mean. I can choose to learn to skate or I choose not to.
So free will and consciousness are strongly linked.
I have seen zero evidence that any other being other than humans can do this. All other animals have behaviors that are directly shaped by their environment, physical needs, and genetic temperament, and not at all shaped by choices.
For example a dog that likes to play with children simply likes them, it did not choose to like them. I on the other hand can sit, think, and decide if I like kids or not.
(This does not imply that all choices made by humans are conscious - in fact most are not, it just means that humans can do that.)
What's the distinction between knowing I exist, but all my actions are pre-programmed vs not knowing I exist? You're essentially describing a detached observer, who watches their own body do stuff without influencing it.
The whole point of being conscious is being aware of yourself, and then using that awareness to direct your actions.
I had no idea people even had another definition, I can't figure out how else you could even define it.
Our brains are all about prediction - ability to predict (based on past experience) what will happen in the future (e.g. if I go to X I will find water) which is a massive evolutionary advantage over just reacting to the present like an insect or perhaps a fish.
Consciousness either evolved for a reason, or comes for free with any brain-like cognitive architecture. It's based on the brain having connections giving it access to its internal states (thereby giving us the ability to self-observe), not just sensory inputs informing it about the external world. The evolutionary value of consciousness would be to be able to better predict based on the brain having access to its internal states, but as noted it may "come for free" with any kind of bird or mammal like brain - hard to imagine a brain that somehow does NOT have access to it's own internal states, and would therefore NOT be able to process/predict those using it's cognitive apparatus (lacking in something like an LLM) just as it does external sensory inputs.
Of course consciousness (ability of the brain to self-observe) is responsible for the illusion of having free will, since the brain naturally correlates it's internal pre-action planning ("I'm choosing between A or B ..." etc) with any subsequent action, but that internal planning/choice is of course all a function of brain wiring, not some mystical "free will" coming in and bending the laws of physics.
You and your dog both are conscious and both experience the illusion of free will.