As artificial intelligence continues to become integral to society, some are beginning to think about the nature of consciousness and its potential manifestation in non-biological systems. The emergence of large language models has brought these questions to the forefront, inviting some to consider whether these sophisticated AI systems could possess some form of consciousness. Let's push on this concept and explore the philosophical framework of panprotopsychism and its conceptual relationship with LLMs.

Panprotopsychism is a philosophical perspective that challenges our understanding of consciousness. It proposes that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, existing beyond the confines of biological or technological substrates. According to panprotopsychism, proto-conscious properties are inherent to all physical entities, from subatomic particles to complex systems like the human brain or artificial neural networks.

These proto-conscious properties are seen as the building blocks from which more complex forms of consciousness can emerge. Panprotopsychism suggests that........

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