I’ve seen a system that I’m pretty sure fulfills your criteria—it uses a set of multiple cameras at carefully defined positions and reconciles the pictures from these cameras to try to figure out the exact location of an object with a very specific colour and appearance. That would be the “phenomenal consciousness” that you describe; but I would not call that system any more or less conscious than any other computer.
Note that if two agents (robotic or human) agree on what external reality is like, but have no access to each other’s percepts, the whole realm of subjective experience will seem quite mysterious. Each can doubt that the other’s visual experience is like its own, for example (although obviously certain structural isomorphisms must obtain). Etc.
Ah—surely that requires something more than just an appearance-reality distinction. That requires appearance-reality distinction and the ability to select its own thoughts. While the specific system I refer to in the second paragraph has an appearance-reality distinction, I have yet to see any sign that it is capable of choosing what to think about.
Ah, thank you. That makes it a lot clearer.
I’ve seen a system that I’m pretty sure fulfills your criteria—it uses a set of multiple cameras at carefully defined positions and reconciles the pictures from these cameras to try to figure out the exact location of an object with a very specific colour and appearance. That would be the “phenomenal consciousness” that you describe; but I would not call that system any more or less conscious than any other computer.
Ah—surely that requires something more than just an appearance-reality distinction. That requires appearance-reality distinction and the ability to select its own thoughts. While the specific system I refer to in the second paragraph has an appearance-reality distinction, I have yet to see any sign that it is capable of choosing what to think about.
That (thought selection) seems like a good angle. I just wanted to throw out a necessary condition for phenomenal consciousness, not a sufficient one.