this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
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This is exactly my point though. You think these aren't conscious, yet nobody can define what consciousness is in a brain. Is a single thought consciousness? Is a thought created by the movement of signals in the brain? Does a thought require the storage of memories - and what structures or thresholds does that require? Nobody can measure a thought (if they can I'd love to see the study).
Nobody knows what the threshold is from a group of brain cells having electrical inputs and providing outputs (these organoids) to what we experience as thinking. But there is a threshold.
You have a good point about a fetus, actually. When does a developing fetus actually produce thinking and thoughts. This is something that we can't measure either, because we can't ask a fetus. But, fetuses move around in tummies and respond to sounds and movement. Do they have thoughts? Almost certainly, right? As much as a frog or a mouse or a worm. (Note: this is not a pro-life argument, I am certainly pro-choice).
We can measure brain activity, but looking at electrical and magnetic fields on a brain doesn't mean we understand what consciousness or a thought is.
Anyway, I guess my point is that if you "think" it's not thinking because it doesn't seem like it could be, that's my point. The ethics of this work is vibes based.
I don't think they're conscious, and you can't just say they're conscious because we can't prove they aren't. This is a great platform for studying neural pathway degredation though and I hope it bears fruit.
As some sort of torment nexus type tool, this is pointless, incredibly expensive, and impossible to train. It's hard enough to train regular humans to do simple tasks and they have the benefit of 15+ years of social education and constant interfacing with the real world.