That there are meaningful statements that cannot be empirically grounded—and the fact that you cannot communicate your own specific experience of redness to someone else shows that it’s not empirically grounded
A blind man once said that although he had never experienced red, he imagined that it was something like the sound of a trumpet, which I think is pretty good. And fictionally:
Menahem sighed. ‘How can one explain colours to a blind man?’
‘One says’, snapped Rek, ‘that red is like silk, blue is like cool water, and yellow is like sunshine on the face.’
— David Gemmell “Legend”
My entire point is that the idea that you could measure consciousness under any circumstances whatsoever, of a rock, a tree, a person or a corpse, follows from an incorrect application of empirical epistemic standards to conceptual problems.
Medics routinely assess the state of consciousness of patients. People routinely, automatically assess the states of the people around them: whether they are asleep or awake, whether they are paying attention or daydreaming.
To me, our experience that we have experience, and our simultaneous inability to explain it, amount to our ignorance about the matter, not a proof that there is any conceptual error in seeking an explanation.
ETA: BTW, I’m not the one who’s giving you a −1 on every post in this thread, and I wouldn’t even if I was not one of the participants.
Medics routinely assess the state of consciousness of patients. People routinely, automatically assess the states of the people around them: whether they are asleep or awake, whether they are paying attention or daydreaming.
What they’re testing is the patient’s responsiveness—If the internal, private experience of consciousness were open to measurement we could simply knock a tree with a rubber hammer or what have you instead of analysing the problem. Any metric of consciousness that you could invent, applicable to humans, would entail some assumptions about how consciousness manifests in humans or at best in animals. You’d be excluding the possibility of measuring it in non-living matter a priori. In effect you’d be defining consciousness to mean whatever is measurable: responsiveness, intelligence, capacity for memory, etc. This is why it’s a conceptual problem—if consciousness is conceptually distinct from those measurable qualities, then how could you justify the use of any particular metric?
our experience that we have experience, and our simultaneous inability to explain it, amount to our ignorance about the matter, not a proof that there is any conceptual error in seeking an explanation
It’s not a matter of proof; I find panpsychism appealing on abductive grounds—if it were true then it wouldn’t be surprising that human beings are capable of consciousness.
Re. downvotes: I march toward the sound of gunfire, so I’ll probably be in negative reputation before too long.
Any metric of consciousness that you could invent, applicable to humans, would entail some assumptions about how consciousness manifests in humans or at best in animals.
The gross signs that doctors measure are just a pragmatic method that does the job the doctors are interested in (saving lives), not a definition of consciousness. The only definition we have of consciousness is the extensional one of pointing to our own experiences. Everything we observe about how this experience is modulated by physical circumstances suggests that it is specifically a physical process of the brain. We may ascribe it also to other animals, but we observe nothing to suggest that it is something a rock could have.
I find panpsychism appealing on abductive grounds—if it were true then it wouldn’t be surprising that human beings are capable of consciousness.
“X implies Y, therefore Y implies X” does not work as an argument, especially when we already know Y (“humans are conscious”) to be true. Any number of things imply Y, including, for example “only humans are conscious”, “all terrestrial animals with a nervous system are conscious”, or “any physically faithful simulation of a conscious entity is conscious.” I don’t see any reason to favour “everything is conscious” over any of these.
The gross signs that doctors measure are just a pragmatic method that does the job the doctors are interested in (saving lives), not a definition of consciousness.
If you already acknowledge this then why did you bring medical tests up to begin with?
Everything we observe about how this experience is modulated by physical circumstances suggests that it is specifically a physical process of the brain
Some physical process in the brain may just as likely simply be involved in organizing and amplifying consciousness as be totally responsible for it.
we observe nothing to suggest that it is something a rock could have
What specifically do we observe in other people to suggest that they could have it? Isn’t the entire point of the “p-zombie” concept to show that nothing we observe about other people could possibly evince consciousness?
“X implies Y, therefore Y implies X” does not work as an argument, especially when we already know Y (“humans are conscious”) to be true
The whole process of model-building is to find X’s which imply Y’s where Y is already known. That’s pretty much what science is, right? Nothing about the world is known purely through deduction or induction. It “does not work as an argument” insofar as it’s not a species of deductive (or, narrowly speaking, inductive) activity; but that’s not to say it’s epistemically inert.
Any number of things imply Y, including, for example “only humans are conscious”, “all terrestrial animals with a nervous system are conscious”, or “any physically faithful simulation of a conscious entity is conscious.” I don’t see any reason to favour “everything is conscious” over any of these.
Because “everything is conscious” is vastly less arbitrary than any of the other choices you’ve identified.
A blind man once said that although he had never experienced red, he imagined that it was something like the sound of a trumpet, which I think is pretty good. And fictionally:
— David Gemmell “Legend”
Medics routinely assess the state of consciousness of patients. People routinely, automatically assess the states of the people around them: whether they are asleep or awake, whether they are paying attention or daydreaming.
To me, our experience that we have experience, and our simultaneous inability to explain it, amount to our ignorance about the matter, not a proof that there is any conceptual error in seeking an explanation.
ETA: BTW, I’m not the one who’s giving you a −1 on every post in this thread, and I wouldn’t even if I was not one of the participants.
What they’re testing is the patient’s responsiveness—If the internal, private experience of consciousness were open to measurement we could simply knock a tree with a rubber hammer or what have you instead of analysing the problem. Any metric of consciousness that you could invent, applicable to humans, would entail some assumptions about how consciousness manifests in humans or at best in animals. You’d be excluding the possibility of measuring it in non-living matter a priori. In effect you’d be defining consciousness to mean whatever is measurable: responsiveness, intelligence, capacity for memory, etc. This is why it’s a conceptual problem—if consciousness is conceptually distinct from those measurable qualities, then how could you justify the use of any particular metric?
It’s not a matter of proof; I find panpsychism appealing on abductive grounds—if it were true then it wouldn’t be surprising that human beings are capable of consciousness.
Re. downvotes: I march toward the sound of gunfire, so I’ll probably be in negative reputation before too long.
The gross signs that doctors measure are just a pragmatic method that does the job the doctors are interested in (saving lives), not a definition of consciousness. The only definition we have of consciousness is the extensional one of pointing to our own experiences. Everything we observe about how this experience is modulated by physical circumstances suggests that it is specifically a physical process of the brain. We may ascribe it also to other animals, but we observe nothing to suggest that it is something a rock could have.
“X implies Y, therefore Y implies X” does not work as an argument, especially when we already know Y (“humans are conscious”) to be true. Any number of things imply Y, including, for example “only humans are conscious”, “all terrestrial animals with a nervous system are conscious”, or “any physically faithful simulation of a conscious entity is conscious.” I don’t see any reason to favour “everything is conscious” over any of these.
If you already acknowledge this then why did you bring medical tests up to begin with?
Some physical process in the brain may just as likely simply be involved in organizing and amplifying consciousness as be totally responsible for it.
What specifically do we observe in other people to suggest that they could have it? Isn’t the entire point of the “p-zombie” concept to show that nothing we observe about other people could possibly evince consciousness?
The whole process of model-building is to find X’s which imply Y’s where Y is already known. That’s pretty much what science is, right? Nothing about the world is known purely through deduction or induction. It “does not work as an argument” insofar as it’s not a species of deductive (or, narrowly speaking, inductive) activity; but that’s not to say it’s epistemically inert.
Because “everything is conscious” is vastly less arbitrary than any of the other choices you’ve identified.