I think this is the point that the poster is trying to make. They’re saying it’s difficult to declare something conscious or not using exact criteria.
A popular definition (in my experience) is the existence of a central nervous system, but we don’t really know whether or not that’s responsible for consciousness. I wonder if we’ll ever know for sure.
Re:The case against plant consciousness
by matt-attack on Thursday July 04, 2019 @01:20AM
(#20351786)
Well an unconscious body has a central nervous system but is clearly not conscious.
This is very similar to the definition I was given for "robot" in an embedded systems course.