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I can only know for sure that I am conscious, I only assume others are conscious because they are built kind of similar to the way I am. Though if we weren't co
by roberttod 8y ago
I can only know for sure that I am conscious, I only assume others are conscious because they are built kind of similar to the way I am. Though if we weren't conscious then would we talk about consciousness? What other topics wouldn't we talk about if we weren't conscious? We could still talk about experience because it would be functional, e.g. "I am experiencing pain" could be something I expect to come from an unconscious thing that has evolved to communicate pain in order to avoid death.
Could a conversation about consciousness occur from unconscious things?
- avar 8y agoYes, but more specifically you seem to be fumbling your way towards a well-known though experiment in philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
- taneq 8y agoP-zombies bug me. For a p-zombie to be functionally identical to a human, it would have to process all of the same inputs as the human, including its looped-back internal inputs regarding its own state. Asserting that it's possible to do so without producing an equivalent inner life to that of a 'real' human is just asserting some kind of supernatural basis for consciousness.