I don’t understand where the disagreement is coming from.
I’m not sure there is a disagreement. As I said, I don’t spend much time thinking about consciousness, and even less time reading about it, so please bear with me as I struggle to communicate.
Suppose I have a genetic defect such that my consciousness detector is broken. How would I know that? As I say, I didn’t discover that I am conscious by introspection. I was told that I am conscious when I was young enough to believe what I was told. I was told that all the other people I know are conscious—except maybe when they are asleep or knocked out after a fall. I was told that no one really knows for sure whether my dog Cookie was conscious. But that the ants in my ant farm almost certainly were not. Based on this information, I constructed a kind of operational definition for the term. But I really had (and still have) no idea whether my definition matched anyone else’s.
But here is the thing. I have a friend whose color-red qualia detector has a genetic defect. He learned the meaning of the word “red” and the word “green” as a child just like me. But he didn’t know that he had learned the wrong meanings until a teacher became suspicious and sent him to have his vision checked. See, they can detect defects in color-red qualia detectors. So, he knows his is defective. He now knows that when he was told the meaning of the word red by example, he got the wrong idea.
So how do I know that my consciousness detector is working? I do notice that even though most people were told the meaning of the word back in grade school just like me, they don’t all seem to have the same idea. Are some of their consciousness detectors broken? Is mine broken? Are you and I in disagreement? If you think that we are in disagreement, do you now understand where the disagreement is coming from? One thing I am pretty sure of: if I do have a broken consciousness detector due to a genetic defect, this defect hasn’t really hurt me too much. It doesn’t seem to be something crucial. I do fine just recognizing people and assuming that they are all conscious, including myself. But perhaps I am a zombie. I just don’t know it because my detector is broken.
I’m not sure there is a disagreement. As I said, I don’t spend much time thinking about consciousness, and even less time reading about it, so please bear with me as I struggle to communicate.
Suppose I have a genetic defect such that my consciousness detector is broken. How would I know that? As I say, I didn’t discover that I am conscious by introspection. I was told that I am conscious when I was young enough to believe what I was told. I was told that all the other people I know are conscious—except maybe when they are asleep or knocked out after a fall. I was told that no one really knows for sure whether my dog Cookie was conscious. But that the ants in my ant farm almost certainly were not. Based on this information, I constructed a kind of operational definition for the term. But I really had (and still have) no idea whether my definition matched anyone else’s.
But here is the thing. I have a friend whose color-red qualia detector has a genetic defect. He learned the meaning of the word “red” and the word “green” as a child just like me. But he didn’t know that he had learned the wrong meanings until a teacher became suspicious and sent him to have his vision checked. See, they can detect defects in color-red qualia detectors. So, he knows his is defective. He now knows that when he was told the meaning of the word red by example, he got the wrong idea.
So how do I know that my consciousness detector is working? I do notice that even though most people were told the meaning of the word back in grade school just like me, they don’t all seem to have the same idea. Are some of their consciousness detectors broken? Is mine broken? Are you and I in disagreement? If you think that we are in disagreement, do you now understand where the disagreement is coming from? One thing I am pretty sure of: if I do have a broken consciousness detector due to a genetic defect, this defect hasn’t really hurt me too much. It doesn’t seem to be something crucial. I do fine just recognizing people and assuming that they are all conscious, including myself. But perhaps I am a zombie. I just don’t know it because my detector is broken.