Re:What Is It Like to Have a Brain?: Nineteen Ways of Lookin...
by JohnBooty on Friday October 14, 2022 @11:08PM
(#33211350)
I'm a neophyte on the topic, at least as far as reading "serious" literature on it, but:
We can trivially imagine an electronic circuit
that registers different current levels when
exposed to red or blue light. Nobody (that I'm
aware of) suggests that there is an experience
within the electronic circuit
...yeah, I'd like to here this addressed by those who claim consciousness is a non-hard problem.
If we are to claim that consciousness is a series of inputs and outputs, then even a simple device like the one you described is "conscious."
A moderately more complex device (say, a Roomba) might even be said to experience "qualia" because it clearly makes decisions and considers some things good and other things bad.
And by this logic a blade of grass is almost certainly conscious.
That's fine, I guess, but it feels awfully lazy. If we expand the definition of consciousness to include Roombas and blades of grass, that's cool, but we still have the challenging problem of defining what makes human consciousness different from grass consciousness. If we decide that the difference is purely quantitative, then we have some uncomfortable things to think about.
If we value human life more than grass or Roombas, because we have "more" consciousness, then are some humans more valuable than others because they have more neurons, or perhaps simply more active neurons?
If we are to claim that consciousness is a series of inputs and outputs, then even a simple device like the one you described is "conscious."
A moderately more complex device (say, a Roomba) might even be said to experience "qualia" because it clearly makes decisions and considers some things good and other things bad.
And by this logic a blade of grass is almost certainly conscious.
That's fine, I guess, but it feels awfully lazy. If we expand the definition of consciousness to include Roombas and blades of grass, that's cool, but we still have the challenging problem of defining what makes human consciousness different from grass consciousness. If we decide that the difference is purely quantitative, then we have some uncomfortable things to think about.
If we value human life more than grass or Roombas, because we have "more" consciousness, then are some humans more valuable than others because they have more neurons, or perhaps simply more active neurons?