Slipstick Libby wrote:
...all I got out of it is; that it would be trivial to consider lesser organisms conscious, no one knows what is or isn't conscious (extreme skepticism which isn't really useful),

Slipstick Libby wrote:
and that people here are inhibited by some "philosophical" concept of consciousness which may or may not (i wouldn't know since no one has confronted me directly with this philosophical concept) be scientific. All in all I was trying to end my involvement.

Slipstick Libby wrote:

I don't mean to sound like a troll, but all I got out of it is; that it would be trivial to consider lesser organisms conscious, no one knows what is or isn't conscious (extreme skepticism which isn't really useful), and that people here are inhibited by some "philosophical" concept of consciousness which may or may not (i wouldn't know since no one has confronted me directly with this philosophical concept) be scientific. All in all I was trying to end my involvement.

Kamerynn wrote:


If all you can take away from this amounts to what you see as the uselessness of the question "how do you know," then you have, indeed, gained nothing of importance from these discussions. Science will continue to ask and answer that question in its quest for progress with or without our help.



It never ceases to amaze me how many pass off my experience of a rose - of its color and smell - as some complex philosophical concept that inhibits me. That I experience joy and amazement, bringing tears to my eyes with its intensity, when I watch certain dance performances does not inhibit me. That I have these experiences and don't just behave as if I do is, apparently, more important to me than such things are to many others.

The question of whether computers actually have these experiences (rather than merely acting as if) is important for all sorts of reasons - that it would make them moral patients (i.e., they would deserve consideration from moral agents like you and me) is the first to come to mind.

Of course, if you're done with the discussion, then I wish you well. However, I ask you to please not lump all of our views into some ascetic, impersonal, and calculating concept. Consciousness is so much more than that.

edit: In fact, functionalist/behaviorist accounts of consciousness are the impersonal, cold, and calculating concepts that you accuse others of having. We have a more holistic view in the sense that we do not deny our experiences and their importance.

Mijin wrote:


...which should surprise you. The fact that you don't even see what is so difficult about a problem that is very famous in philosophy and has been debated for centuries (although not called "the hard problem" for all this time) should ring alarm bells.

OK, but here we get to the crux: there is a difference between perception and simply sensory detection.
I think in all your discussion, including in the answers you've given to the wikipedia questions, you've assumed that the alternative to perceiving the world, is blindness.

Let's try some less formal arguments: How do you know that you and I see "blue" the same way? I mean, we both identify a blue object as being blue, but how can we know that what you're seeing in your mind's "eye", and what I'm seeing in mine, are the same?

Or another: Say we completely map a bee's brain. We know what every neuron does. Can we now know what ultraviolet light looks like?

It depends what you mean by less "developed".
What is it like to be a program?

No need to introduce me, I'm familiar with his work.
In a very roundabout way he denies the existence of inner subjective states at all.
I don't want to go too far into critisizing him though, because there are some on this board that are supporters, and we'd end up debating the merits of Consciousness Explained, which would be off-topic.
But suffice it to say, I don't find his arguments compelling.