Something worries me about this. It seems to say that Consciousness is a quantifiable thing, and as such, certain living things (babies, cows, dogs/cats, fish) may not meet the standards for Consciousness?
Or, am I reading it wrong??? I’m probably reading it wrong, please tell me I’m reading it wrong (if that is what I am doing).
I can understand your worries. It doesn’t actually say that you can prove a lack of consciousness; but that you can prove that, under certain conditions, the meaning of the concepts in the mind would be underdetermined; and argues that you don’t need to treat such an entity as conscious.
A fuller treatment would talk about what parts of the mind are conscious, or which concepts are accessible to consciousness. I don’t think consciousness is a 0⁄1 binary distinction for an entire brain.
Okay. It seems innocuous to me, but when I imagine what would happen if Richard Dawkins had made the same joke online somewhere, deleting it seems like a good idea.
Upon reading it again (and with some input from a friend who is a logician—he said that this is something that he said I should have been able to understand myself—and upon going over it with him again, I discovered he was right), I get that there is this distinction now.
I don’t think consciousness is necessarily a binary distinction for any part of the brain, or any thing for that matter. This does mean that it could be 0⁄1, but that it is likely that most things capable of exhibiting conscious behavior lie between the two degrees.
Something worries me about this. It seems to say that Consciousness is a quantifiable thing, and as such, certain living things (babies, cows, dogs/cats, fish) may not meet the standards for Consciousness?
Or, am I reading it wrong??? I’m probably reading it wrong, please tell me I’m reading it wrong (if that is what I am doing).
I can understand your worries. It doesn’t actually say that you can prove a lack of consciousness; but that you can prove that, under certain conditions, the meaning of the concepts in the mind would be underdetermined; and argues that you don’t need to treat such an entity as conscious.
A fuller treatment would talk about what parts of the mind are conscious, or which concepts are accessible to consciousness. I don’t think consciousness is a 0⁄1 binary distinction for an entire brain.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you don’t want people quoting you on that...
Too conservative?
How about, “further study is probably needed”?
(deleting comment, hopefully before google spiders it up)
Want me to delete mine?
Okay. It seems innocuous to me, but when I imagine what would happen if Richard Dawkins had made the same joke online somewhere, deleting it seems like a good idea.
Upon reading it again (and with some input from a friend who is a logician—he said that this is something that he said I should have been able to understand myself—and upon going over it with him again, I discovered he was right), I get that there is this distinction now.
I don’t think consciousness is necessarily a binary distinction for any part of the brain, or any thing for that matter. This does mean that it could be 0⁄1, but that it is likely that most things capable of exhibiting conscious behavior lie between the two degrees.