5 ms·

But you were talking about the mechanism of consciousness, not verifying whether someone is conscious or not. It may be impossible to verify if someone is cons

But you were talking about the mechanism of consciousness, not verifying whether someone is conscious or not. It may be impossible to verify if someone is conscious in the same way that I know I am, but we can associate a set of behaviors with an intelligent creature. If we empirically prove that those behaviors emerge from a collection of neural impulses, then it takes a simple assumption (almost a cognitive axiom) that the creature exhibiting those behaviors is conscious, to conclude that emergentism has been empirically verified. I feel like your position that emergentism is empirically impossible to verify is itself a strong position, and attempts to define a boundary on science when your stated goal is to place doubts on where the boundaries are. Yes it requires a few assumptions, and yes those assumptions are impossible to verify empirically. But then so are the mathematical axioms. We don't go around saying "physics is impossible to empirically verify because mathematical axioms are impossible to prove and are incomplete"

CuriouslyC 8y ago
Try imagining yourself as a system of molecules all responding to their environment. It is reasonable that your complexity might be a good indicator of your potential for intelligent responses. I don't think that holds for your consciousness though. If it did, that would imply either consciousness is a spectrum or the universe has a hard coded on/off switch for consciousness. The on/off hypothesis has problems with conservation of information, and if consciousness is defined as "having an internal experience" it isn't clear how that could be non-binary.
- nickpsecurity 8y ago
  Did you say an on-off switch for consciousness? There may be one for humans. https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/gw-researchers-disrupt-consciousness-electrical-stimulation https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/gw-researchers-disrupt-consciousness... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1525505014002017 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S152550501...
  - CuriouslyC 8y ago
    That area may be important for higher brain functioning and memory. I don't think those are equivalent to consciousness though.
    - nickpsecurity 8y ago
      I think it's likely an emergent phenomenon. Still, being able to turn it on and off with specific components hints they're either the source of conciousness or a big part of it.
mcguire 8y ago
"...we can associate a set of behaviors with an intelligent creature. If we empirically prove that those behaviors emerge from a collection of neural impulses,..." Beware! Here be the dragon of pure behaviorism, which potentially denies that "consciousness" is a valid noun. On the other hand, mathematics is the last refuge of the hardcore platonist (and worse, allows them to run around loose); the rest of us are true formalists who realize it's all a game whose basic rules happen to coincide with reality suspiciously well.

CuriouslyC 8y ago

Try imagining yourself as a system of molecules all responding to their environment. It is reasonable that your complexity might be a good indicator of your potential for intelligent responses. I don't think that holds for your consciousness though. If it did, that would imply either consciousness is a spectrum or the universe has a hard coded on/off switch for consciousness. The on/off hypothesis has problems with conservation of information, and if consciousness is defined as "having an internal experience" it isn't clear how that could be non-binary.

nickpsecurity 8y ago
Did you say an on-off switch for consciousness? There may be one for humans. https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/gw-researchers-disrupt-consciousness-electrical-stimulation https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/gw-researchers-disrupt-consciousness... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1525505014002017 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S152550501...
- CuriouslyC 8y ago
  That area may be important for higher brain functioning and memory. I don't think those are equivalent to consciousness though.
  - nickpsecurity 8y ago
    I think it's likely an emergent phenomenon. Still, being able to turn it on and off with specific components hints they're either the source of conciousness or a big part of it.

mcguire 8y ago

"...we can associate a set of behaviors with an intelligent creature. If we empirically prove that those behaviors emerge from a collection of neural impulses,..." Beware! Here be the dragon of pure behaviorism, which potentially denies that "consciousness" is a valid noun. On the other hand, mathematics is the last refuge of the hardcore platonist (and worse, allows them to run around loose); the rest of us are true formalists who realize it's all a game whose basic rules happen to coincide with reality suspiciously well.