It cannot be perpetual coincidence that our subjective experience always lines up with what our brain and body are doing.
It doesn’t line up, for me at least. What it feels like is not clearly the same thing as others understand my communication of it to be. Nor the reverse—it’s unclear that how I interpret their reports tracks very well with their actual perception of their experiences. And there are orders of magnitude more detail going on in my body (and even just in my brain) than I perceive, let alone that I communicate.
Until you operationally define “sentience”, as in how do you detect and measure it, in the face of potential errors and lies of reported experiences, you should probably taboo it. Circular arguments that “something is discussed, therefore that thing exists” are pretty weak, and don’t show anything important about that something.
I will revise the post when I get a chance because this is a common interpretation of what I said, which wasn’t my intent. My assertion isn’t “if someone or something claims sentience, it must definitely actually be sentient”. Instead we are meant to start with the assumption that the person at the start of the experiment is definitely sentient, and definitely being honest about it. Then the chain of logic starts from that baseline.
And there are orders of magnitude more detail going on in my body (and even just in my brain) than I perceive, let alone that I communicate.
There are no sentient details going on that you wouldn’t perceive.
It doesn’t matter if you communicate something, the important part is that you are capable of communicating it, which means that in changes your input/output pattern (if it didn’t, you wouldn’t be capable of communicating it even in principle).
Circular arguments that “something is discussed, therefore that thing exists”
This isn’t the argument in the OP (even though, when reading quickly, I can see how someone could get that impression).
There are no sentient details going on that you wouldn’t perceive.
I think we’re spinning on an undefined term. I’d bet there are LOTS of details that effect my perception in subtle and aggregate ways which I don’t consciously identify. but i have no clue which perceived or unperceived details add up to my conception of sentience, and even less do I understand yours.
I think we’re spinning on an undefined term. I’d bet there are LOTS of details that effect my perception in subtle and aggregate ways which I don’t consciously identify.
You’re equivocating between perceiving a collection of details and consciously identifying every separate detail.
If I show you a grid of 100 pixels, then (barring imperfect eyesight) you will consciously perceive all 100 them. But you will not consciously identify every individual pixel unless your attention is aimed at each pixel in a for loop (that would take longer than consciously perceiving the entire grid at once).
There are lots of details that affect your perception that you don’t consciously identify. But there is no detail that affects your perception that wouldn’t be contained in your consciousness (otherwise it, by definition, couldn’t affect your perception).
It doesn’t line up, for me at least. What it feels like is not clearly the same thing as others understand my communication of it to be. Nor the reverse—it’s unclear that how I interpret their reports tracks very well with their actual perception of their experiences. And there are orders of magnitude more detail going on in my body (and even just in my brain) than I perceive, let alone that I communicate.
Until you operationally define “sentience”, as in how do you detect and measure it, in the face of potential errors and lies of reported experiences, you should probably taboo it. Circular arguments that “something is discussed, therefore that thing exists” are pretty weak, and don’t show anything important about that something.
I will revise the post when I get a chance because this is a common interpretation of what I said, which wasn’t my intent. My assertion isn’t “if someone or something claims sentience, it must definitely actually be sentient”. Instead we are meant to start with the assumption that the person at the start of the experiment is definitely sentient, and definitely being honest about it. Then the chain of logic starts from that baseline.
There are no sentient details going on that you wouldn’t perceive.
It doesn’t matter if you communicate something, the important part is that you are capable of communicating it, which means that in changes your input/output pattern (if it didn’t, you wouldn’t be capable of communicating it even in principle).
This isn’t the argument in the OP (even though, when reading quickly, I can see how someone could get that impression).
I think we’re spinning on an undefined term. I’d bet there are LOTS of details that effect my perception in subtle and aggregate ways which I don’t consciously identify. but i have no clue which perceived or unperceived details add up to my conception of sentience, and even less do I understand yours.
You’re equivocating between perceiving a collection of details and consciously identifying every separate detail.
If I show you a grid of 100 pixels, then (barring imperfect eyesight) you will consciously perceive all 100 them. But you will not consciously identify every individual pixel unless your attention is aimed at each pixel in a for loop (that would take longer than consciously perceiving the entire grid at once).
There are lots of details that affect your perception that you don’t consciously identify. But there is no detail that affects your perception that wouldn’t be contained in your consciousness (otherwise it, by definition, couldn’t affect your perception).