> It’s worth pausing here and noting one property of consciousness that will be of use to us later: consciousness is independent of external observers. By this

> It’s worth pausing here and noting one property of consciousness that will be of use to us later: consciousness is independent of external observers. By this I mean that the existence of my consciousness does not depend on other observers perceiving me to be conscious. Even if everyone else in the universe should deny that I am conscious — or if those other observers did not exist at all — this would have no bearing on my own consciousness. If, in a terrible catastrophe all life on Earth should perish, except by some strange fortune my own, my consciousness would not suddenly dissolve into the ether. Seems like exactly the sort of thing something trying to convince me of its consciousness would say to justify it. How am I supposed to know this was written by a human? Anyways, I have a relative who was sterilized because people believed she not only had no capacity for higher reasoning, but also that her continuing to have reproductive autonomy would be a danger to others because she might pass her lack of "consciousness" along. So you'll have to forgive me if I'm not very impressed by anyone who decides they have the key to an objective measure of consciousness. This edges far too close to eugenics in my mind.