I've always liked the definition of making sense to ask what it's like to be something as an indicator of consciousness.

For example, you can try to imagine what it's like to be a dog, but it doesn't make much sense to ask what it's like to be a toaster.

What's it like to be an artificial neural network? I don't think that's valid, nor is there any good evidence that we're making progress.

> consciousness is a strictly subjective thing.

I’m wondering whether that can be taken as an objective truth.