Kamerynn wrote:


Not only are rocks not conscious (at least, we have no real reason to believe they are, in my opinion), but they don't even act as if they are. If they did behave as if they were conscious, there would still be a question of whether they are actually conscious or only acting as if.

The above supposes that, for example, a game of pong is conscious because it "internally responds to external stimuli." I see no necessary connection between responses to stimuli and subjective, qualitative experience.

You're right, in a sense; reports are no longer necessary. However, that's only because the correlation between brain events and chronic pain has already been made. No event in the brain itself entails, a priori, that it is a chronic pain event. Just think: there are no labels in the brain that make it obvious that brain event X is an event of consciousness type Y. We have already paired brain events with events of consciousness, and we can now, therefore, simply refer to brain events instead of reports; this doesn't refute the necessity of those reports in the initial establishment of what those brain events represent.

ssu wrote:
You think that for philosophy there is an axiomatic and deductive method? Hell, if something as obviously logical as mathematics cannot to be explained by the axiomatic method, how on earth do you think there is an axiomatic and deductive method of philosophy? Now if you meant to ask me what comes close to my thinking of consciousness or what explanations of consciousness in the vast philosophic heritage make sense to me I would start with Locke's Tabula rasa, for example. It's good to start from Locke's views in order to discuss the question of this thread.

I believe that if we stick to what this thread was about in the first place (Will AI robots ever be conscious?) then yes, self consciousness is a very important part of the problem. As Mijin wrote, your definition makes the whole matter of consciousness trivial. Too trivial definitions (or lax standards) are not good. Using them you can hide underlying problems and easily proclaim some robot to be already conscious. (Why the fuzz while my car is already conscious because it has traction control!)

Slipstick Libby wrote:

How are you certain that an amoeba which responds to proximity with a harmful (to the amoeba) substance does not have subjective qualitative states?

I was never attempting to say that consciousness and intelligence are numerically identical concepts. I suppose it was you who misunderstood what I was posting.

How does my definition render the matter of consciousness trivial? I can see how it renders differentiation of humanity from less developed types of organisms trivial.

ssu wrote:
Right. Next time find out what they mean.