-I think it is likely that consciousness emerges on the aggregate macro-level from processes that are simple on the micro-level. Such phenomena do lend themselves to be described or indeed understood best with statistics.

How's that?

If it's not defined and we have no way to measure the activity that would allow us to even create a model, how could statistics be used?

I don't forsee the tech needed to record an entire brain's electrical information including it's constantly changing state, every neuron, and every connection, (all architecture), including it's myelination, while the human is alive - happening any time in the foreseeable future.

Not only that. Then interpreting any statistical prediction in a real output of behavior or "experience".

Not everything can be measured. An inability to measure something does not mean it's not real and rooted in the material world.

We know enough to know that consciousness/awareness or any other definition you want to give it, and mental processing occurs in the brain.

We can't measure it at a whole brain level . But we know that's where it's happening and that it's a product of biological phenomena.

I'm sorry if this sounds rude but LLMs are not self updating systems. They are nothing like human processing. They don't loop in the ways biology does. They don't constantly change. They have fixed algorithms.

They can't be. When parameters are too open with prediction models they just become nonsense.

This has been demonstrated many times.

Also consciousness in animals is supported by lots of research in neuroscience.

Even in the tiny flatworm.

It's not unique in humans. And it appears to exist in animals.

The complexity would obviously vary based on biological limitations. But it appears to be, at least in part, a product of sensory processing.

Which is often why you find it being referred to as ,"awareness" or "self awareness".

Awareness of self is necessary for any organism to distinguish itself from its environment and act accordingly. To be able to predict outcomes and act accordingly. To even know what can be consumed or mated with. Awareness of environment creates approach and avoidance emotions/behaviors.

Of course this is one of many theories regarding what consciousness is. But this one seems like a pretty solid description and explains why it would exist in animals.