Levels of Consciousness

Apparently people have a hard time pinning down a definition of consciousness, though perhaps they want a litmus test to identify whether of not something is conscious. In any event, I tried laying out a definition and resulting 'levels' of consciousness. (Note: This was related to 'Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind' by V.S. Ramachandran).

Consciousness == blackbox modelling == approximations of a system allowing prediction

To understand == to model accurately enough to make good predictions

L1 = ability to store and run models
L2 = ability to incrementally adapt models to input (building)
L3 = handle big jumps in input (non-incremental building)
L4 = adapt models without input (= to think?) (imagine/daydream/dream) (= traditional definition of consciousness?)
L5 = ability to hold conflicting models at the same time (= genius or 'a first rate mind')
L6 = model randomness (= no information or infinite information depending on your understanding) (= God?)

That final level is interesting because it is non-standard, basically unsolvable with our current understanding, and really shows the limits to traditional definitions of consciousness.

If you rank current AI (artificial intelligence) in these levels you find that L5 is easier for computers, but L2 and L3 are more difficult. Also, L4 is very difficult. For a biological entity such as a human brain, the levels get more difficult from L1 to L6. This emphasizes the fundamental difference in approach of a biological (highly parallel) system and normal (mostly sequential) computer systems.