It's not just an open question. It's such a fundamentally vague and imprecise concept, that it is not approachable, even in principle. Just like consciousness, as you correctly point out.
We don't have a tool or a ruleset to determine whether something is "conscious" or "has real understanding", as the other user put it. And, thus, the statement "X has real understanding" is unfalsifiable.
It is also a thought-terminating cliche [0], because by opening that can of worms the conversation is automatically derailed, as we just saw exemplified here.
We don't have a tool or a ruleset to determine whether something is "conscious" or "has real understanding", as the other user put it. And, thus, the statement "X has real understanding" is unfalsifiable.
It is also a thought-terminating cliche [0], because by opening that can of worms the conversation is automatically derailed, as we just saw exemplified here.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...