[mkaic]

By your logic, is it possible for you to prove to me that you are conscious? No, it's not. There is nothing you can say or do that can prove beyond doubt to me that you are subjectively experiencing reality with a similar consciousness and sentience as me. I also cannot prove to you that I am conscious. That said, both of us have still mutually agreed that we are conscious!

This is because consciousness is a fundamentally unfalsifiable thing (within our current understanding of it, at least). The only way we can "prove" anything or anyone is conscious is by observing its interactions with its environment. Thus, if a robot can mimic the way a human interacts with its environment well enough that it appears conscious, then it is conscious.

What I'm trying to say is that there is no functional difference between consciousness and the appearance of consciousness, so any distinction you try to draw between them is arbitrary and semantic. If a robot that could perfectly mimic human behavior possessed a body that looked just like a human's and were to hold a conversation with you, you would be none the wiser. You would treat it like it were sentient -- because it would be.

[deerparkwater]

There is no absolute way, hence solipsism, but in practical terms, I expect that you are instantiating consciousness because we share a common ancestor.

My consciousness is a direct result of my parent's teaching + the 2 languages spoken. It isn't spontaneous. Also, the structure of our brains are largely similar so I would assume you are conscious in a similar way, occupying a subset of valid qualia space. My brain is nothing like silicon. The expectation that a very complicated piece of metal is somehow exploiting a physical phenomenon that is present in a human brain is non sensical imo.

The reason why I posted is because at some point I was also misled about singularity discussions. That computers have existential value because of complexity. They do not. They are not observers of the universe.

I believe that conciousness operates at a quantum level and is an electro magnetic field. Effectively it is a field created by the deterministic structure of the brain, as constructed by genes. Like water running through a cave.

Calculations (logic, emotions) are particular paths through the quantum vector field space. Essentially the performance of 1+1=2 in a human brain, is a an electron or a set of bounded electrons or whatever sub-deterministic molecules, going through an established arithmetic cave structure. Not understanding that 1+1=2 occurs when the cave structure that is required sends the electron into a non-valid (as per the definition of the universe) path in the quantum field vector space. The universe does not recognize this quantum field vector space as valid knowing, and there is no instance of conciousness that is equivalent to the knowledge that 1+1=2. This may occur in a brain that is not familiar with arithmetic or the brain structure that is required to construct a conforming electron path is destroyed.

Free will is exercised, in the sense that it is performed at the non-determinstic level (quantum size) by the choice of calculations to perform (and act on).

The field must also alter the deterministic structure.

[mkaic]

Or do we just believe we share a common ancestor? Also, if a machine is trained on data generated by humans, couldn't you argue that the humans are the machine's ancestors?

[deerparkwater]

Well... I believe that we share a common ancestor to the same degree that I believe that my parents are my ancestors and I am my child's ancestor. In other words, those are things that physically occurred and there is no physical/observational conspiracy.

The term ancestor is not cultural. It is physical. As in, we may not actually have any free will in cultural or qualia space. In the sense that, the only instance of choice (by the universe) occurs at conception. Which is actually the expected and occums-Razor implementation. Meaning that, the brain is entirely deterministic. The choice of behavior of an organism is entirely determined and constrained by it's genes (which the universe constructs at hopefully a quantum level at conception). If we eliminate quantum mechanics even at conception, then life is entirely deterministic (though obivously the range of it's choices is large). In fact, one could argue, if there is free will, then it doesn't conform to natural selection (or exceeds the performance of natural selection), in the sense that it adds something beyond what is specified by the random choice of the universe in it's conception of a particular organism. The point (or atleast observable performance) of natural selection, as I understand it, is to construct a variety of life objects that have varying performances. If the life objects are entirely Newtonian deterministic, then the instance of quantum wave collapse (by God or whatever is making non-deterministic choice, as we are in our egotistical mind, want to add something non-determinstic to our life soup) occurs only at every instance of conception. Everything after conception is a rube goldberg machine.

If consciousness adds non-Deterministic (quantum) free will and behavior to an organism, then such organisms are implementing a different version of natural selection than other life. If natural selection is occurring in cell cultures entirely on the basis of genes (ie the performance behavior of an organism is optimized by it's changing genetics, and these changes are only constructed at conception), which is what natural selection appears to describe, then we have added something to the natural selection process by claiming consciousness adds another instance of egocentric quantum choice.

[cmsj]

> This is because consciousness is a fundamentally unfalsifiable thing

The real unanswerable question is not "can I prove another entity is conscious", it is "does this other entity believe that it is conscious", because that is the actual test of consciousness. It's frustrating, because there is no possible objective proof of the answer, but to me that's also the point, because consciousness is a subjective thing.