In its narrow philosophical sense, consciousness is subjective experience: there is something it is like to see red, to be in pain, to be afraid or to think a thought. The concept must not simply be conflated with wakefulness, attention, self-awareness or intelligent behavior; they can be related, but they do not mean the same thing.
Here, consciousness is used more broadly than in the narrow technical sense of “subjective experience”: as a name for the experienced whole of human feeling, intuition, normativity, creativity and intelligence.
This is a consciously chosen working definition within the blog's argument. Classical intelligence can be part of this whole without exhausting it, and the definition should be kept separate from the claim about what consciousness fundamentally consists of.
Source: ChatGPT 5.6 Sol, Sunday, August 23, 2026, 4:17 a.m.