This is the epitome of learned helplessness, that you need a neuroscience paper to tell you what thinking and knowledge is when you experience it directly all the time, and can't tell that an LLM doesn't have it. Something is extremely evil about these ideologies that are teaching people that they are NPCs.
I know I'm thinking, I have no idea if you're thinking, or if you're a human or an LLM. But I wouldn't assume you aren't thinking just from reading your output.