Re:Feral Intelligence
by djoldman on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @12:18PM
(#39106310)
You raise some good questions.
Although humans discuss emotions a great deal, there doesn't seem to exist formal definitions for those concepts. Despite this, data can be collected that sidesteps this fact that can be useful: we can ask many people if they feel particular emotions and draw conclusions from that data. Still we must concede that a shared definition may not exist, which weakens these conclusions.
In the case of consciousness, we could ask many people if they thought that someone/something else was conscious, but it's not clear what value that would have.
Although humans discuss emotions a great deal, there doesn't seem to exist formal definitions for those concepts. Despite this, data can be collected that sidesteps this fact that can be useful: we can ask many people if they feel particular emotions and draw conclusions from that data. Still we must concede that a shared definition may not exist, which weakens these conclusions.
In the case of consciousness, we could ask many people if they thought that someone/something else was conscious, but it's not clear what value that would have.