4 ms·

There is no known experiment one can perform that tests if something is conscious or not. We know we are ourselves conscious, so we assume that entities resembl

There is no known experiment one can perform that tests if something is conscious or not. We know we are ourselves conscious, so we assume that entities resembling us also are, and entities that are too different are not. Maybe that's the truth, but for now it's just a personal belief, not a scientific theory. For something to be a scientific theory it must be testable and falsifiable. Some people actually believe that all mater is conscious -- this position is referred to as panpsychism. Some people believe they are the only conscious entity in the universe -- this is solipsism. These positions may sound absurd, but they are not more or less scientifically credible than the mainstream one. They all fit the observable reality, and none of them can be tested. We all have our intuitions and personal beliefs, but from a scientific standpoint I think that the only rigorous attitude is to remain agnostic on this. Otherwise we fall into the same intellectual traps as mysticism. The scientific attitude is above all to doubt, not to blindly believe.

titzer 11y ago
Even though solipsism is not falsifiable, falsifiability is not the only measure of scientific credibility. E.g. solipsism is less credible than materialism, since more observations support materialism and are relatively hard to explain under solipsism, not the least of which are object permanence, the apparent existence of other people who seem more intelligent than the solipsistic mind, disagreement, injury, pain, Occam's razor... Falsifiability doesn't apply to essentially any metaphysics, anyway. Which is where all the woo about panpsychism and morphic resonance and whole series of theories that make consciousness into some weird thing outside our universe. The question is what metatheories are _compatible with observation_, or at the least, under _what level of gymnastics_ they are. All this talk about "we don't know what consciousness is; therefore XYZ" is filled with woo. Even if we don't know what conscious is or can't exactly _test_ for it, most people agree there are at least different levels of sophistication of consciousness, and that some animals appear to be at least partially conscious. That's not odd if we explain this in relation to brain capacity and along normal evolutionary lines. Is it anything other than the evolution of brains really necessary to explain consciousness? Why do you believe so? So what new dimensions of reality would you like to request in order to explain consciousness? Does anyone have any evidence these other dimensions exist? No, of course they don't.

titzer 11y ago

Even though solipsism is not falsifiable, falsifiability is not the only measure of scientific credibility. E.g. solipsism is less credible than materialism, since more observations support materialism and are relatively hard to explain under solipsism, not the least of which are object permanence, the apparent existence of other people who seem more intelligent than the solipsistic mind, disagreement, injury, pain, Occam's razor... Falsifiability doesn't apply to essentially any metaphysics, anyway. Which is where all the woo about panpsychism and morphic resonance and whole series of theories that make consciousness into some weird thing outside our universe. The question is what metatheories are _compatible with observation_, or at the least, under _what level of gymnastics_ they are. All this talk about "we don't know what consciousness is; therefore XYZ" is filled with woo. Even if we don't know what conscious is or can't exactly _test_ for it, most people agree there are at least different levels of sophistication of consciousness, and that some animals appear to be at least partially conscious. That's not odd if we explain this in relation to brain capacity and along normal evolutionary lines. Is it anything other than the evolution of brains really necessary to explain consciousness? Why do you believe so? So what new dimensions of reality would you like to request in order to explain consciousness? Does anyone have any evidence these other dimensions exist? No, of course they don't.