I fully disagree that the mind can operate without "awareness." We understand neither the how nor why of consciousness. But its not just a parlor trick—consciousness helps us mediate our attention.
It's one of the core things missing from our current AI path. Even if the LLMs reach 100% parity on human computational power, we humans are still acting as the ghost-in-the-machine, mediating and directing said computation.
Consciousness (in this sense) doesn't physically exist cause it's unfalsifiable. Philosophy has a whole p-zombie section on that. I believe that you are mixing this metaphysical awareness with the physical process of mind machinery which is obviously required for a mind to work. Unless you have a deeper idea in mind.
If the latter, why do you think it can not? It's a configuration of particles that will evolve by physical means (under materialism ofc). It shouldn't require anything special like any inanimate object doesn't require anything to continue physically existing, the only difference being just how less complex its reactions are. And even that is subjective and anthropecentric, cause laws of nature don't care more about us than e.g. about a rock, they just work.
Because the attention-selection mechanism exists inside the conscious experience. If you can't account for the conscious experience then you're missing the recursive relevancy realization that allows us to select from the salience landscape and direct our behavior accordingly.
LLMs can handle everything downstream from that beautifully. But until we have some way to hand them a conscious experience, they'll need direction from an entity that has one.
It's one of the core things missing from our current AI path. Even if the LLMs reach 100% parity on human computational power, we humans are still acting as the ghost-in-the-machine, mediating and directing said computation.