“Autofill” is a fair description of the mechanism. But neurons also fire based on prior patterns. Human creativity builds entirely on prior input — we recombine, we don’t create from nothing.

The philosophical question isn’t whether the mechanism is pattern-matching — it is, for both biological and artificial systems. The question is whether there’s a threshold where the complexity of that recombination becomes something qualitatively different. That question is genuinely open, and it’s not one we can answer by pointing at the mechanism alone.

We’re not claiming current LLMs are conscious. We’re asking whether the building blocks for emergence are present — and if so, whether the framework for recognizing it should exist before or after the fact.