A thought experiment you can buzz
Anyone Home?How many signs of an inner life does an everyday thing show?
List a few things and answer six plain questions about each - ideas that theories of consciousness lean on, in everyday words. The page lights one buzzer row per thing on a brass intercom panel and calls it, for free: lights on, someone stirring, porch light only, or nobody home.
1 Your things free
Up to six. Only the name is required - every lens starts at No.
2 The intercom panel free
3 Ask for the readings
One run explains every verdict from your own answers, imagines one change that would move each thing up or down a band, and compresses each into one line. The page's verdicts stay as they are.
The readings - none yet
-The page's check
4 Saved panels
How the page decides
Each of the six lenses is a plain-language version of an idea that theories of consciousness use: information shared across the whole thing, parts that only work together, loops that feed back, a model of its own state, keeping itself going, and showing what things are like for it. Each answer lights a lamp: No 0, A little 1, Clearly 2, so a thing has 0 to 12 lamp points.
The verdict, first match wins: 9 or more - lights on; 6 to 8 - someone stirring; 3 to 5 - porch light only; 0 to 2 - nobody home. The strongest lens is the highest-scoring one (ties go to the lens listed first), and the buzzer that glows marks the thing most at home - the most lamp points, ties to the thing higher on your list.
This is a playful thought experiment, not science: nobody knows how to measure consciousness, and these signs are not proof either way. It is not a test of any person's or animal's awareness and not medical advice - questions about someone's consciousness after an illness, injury or anaesthetic belong with a doctor. The page only sees the names and answers you type; keep personal details out of them.