What is consciousness? This is not an easy question to answer and has puzzled philosophers for millennia, psychologists for at least a century, neuroscientists for decades, and podcasters for years. Some living beings are conscious (dogs) and others clearly are not (fungi), but it’s not clear exactly how can define let alone detect consciousness in order to make that determination.
Thesis is best determined by antithesis. The sharper the contrast, the easier it is to separate what is from what is not. Chris Hallbeck of Maximumble, notes that the presence of a smartphone helps us to distinguish between consciousness and its absence.