We May Be Surrounded by Trillions of Conscious Beings, Research Suggests—And They Aren’t Human
(www.popularmechanics.com)
The forced degradation of words is unhelpful, a word will still be needed to differentiate the unparalleled state of mind from the emerging properties of complex systems. Concepts like consciousness and God are often commandeered to peddle tenuous ideas to the great unwashed and it is ultimately unsustainable. And while we are about it computational modelling is a license to find what you want to find.