By what metric do you make that declaration? I submit that any empirical model of consciousness applies equally to states as it does to human minds.

If complexity is consciousness, then NYC's sewer system is conscious too.

No one said that complexity is consciousness.

A lot do. E.g. Tononi's IIT.

Let me rephrase. No one here said that complexity is consciousness. In particular, AnIdiotOnTheNet, who you replied to, did not say that complexity is consciousness.

Also, tangentially, New York's sewers aren't that complex compared to even a rat's brain.

Let me rephrase. No one here said that complexity is consciousness. In particular, AnIdiotOnTheNet, who you replied to, did not say that complexity is consciousness.

>Let me rephrase. No one here said that complexity is consciousness. In particular, AnIdiotOnTheNet, who you replied to, did not say that complexity is consciousness.

Not directly. If not complexity, is it a kind of computation or something physical that makes neurons produce consciousness? Those positoins are more tough to support.

> Also, tangentially, New York's sewers aren't that complex compared to even a rat's brain.

What is the magic measure and what is magic threshold using that measure?

What about a future city's sewer system that is complex enough?

I’m not sure what your intent is here. “Sewers are conscious” seemed to be a reductio ad absurdum but now you seem to be arguing that complexity is consciousness. Regardless, I haven’t proposed any mechanism for consciousness to arise so I don’t have any “position to support” there.

A state doesn't have an independent sense of identity that is apart from the pieces that make it up. That is, it doesn't experience consciousness (as far as we know).

If humans didn't have egos, identities and a sense of "I" and were merely sensory machines, then maybe there could be an equivalence.

That is, if ego and identity are the same thing as consciousness. I'm not sure they are. Frankly, it's a mystery to me, as I think it is to everyone, except for perhaps a few enlightened Buddhist monks.

In other words, you have absolutely no idea if a state experiences "consciousness" in the philosophical sense, so instead have claimed that it doesn't simply because it is too different from you to receive the benefit of the doubt, even though you recognize that such an assertion is impossible within an empirical framework.

Sure... but it's just as impossible to make a claim that it does.

Except that it's not. The assertion made was that any empirical definition of consciousness that applies to humans would likewise apply to states. This is a straightforward claim.

If you dispute this claim then all you need to do is provide an empirical definition of consciousness that applies to humans but not states. I will note that defining "consciousness" as something like "the human experience" is vacuous and doesn't count.

That’s exactly why I think empirical models of consciousness fall short.

I agree that they do, because the experience of consciousness, what one might call the very kernel of our being in order to separate it from any medical definition, can only be measured subjectively, excluding it empiricism by definition.

However, if you are saying that the inability to construct a model of consciousness that does not apply equally well to states and people is a failure of empiricism, I think you have started with the conclusion and are looking for justification.

State is the wrong entity here. A population tends to create a culture, and a culture's interplay of ideas runs on its human network. Which is not to say that a culture is conscious either, and in all likelihood if it does have a kind of consciousness it's one that we will not be able to understand.

See Eric Schwitzgebel, "If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious", http://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/USAconscious.htm

Sure it is. A State reacts to its environment, acts in its interest, engages in rational decision making (at times), and generally exhibits self-aware behavior.