[dasil003]

This is pretty solid reasoning and touches on a lot of good points. But just as there are people who make the close-minded mistakes he cites, there are also people who are entirely too self-assured in their reliance on scientific data.

What makes me skeptical of the (overly) scientific mindset is that quality of life has nothing to do with understanding whatever physical realities we can ascertain by experiment. I don't think science will ever meet philosophy, because a scientific theory must be falsifiable, and I don't believe that is a property of all truth (why should it be?). To the contrary, I think the layers of human consciousness are far more subjective, subtle and complex than science will ever be able to tease apart. Furthermore scientific research can easily makes flip assumptions about the nature of reality without suitable evidence (eg. that consciousness is a by-product of brain activity). In these cases Philosophy is much more capable of addressing the issue than Science.

The problem is that we aren't an external observer of a closed system. At some point everything we think we know boils down to some common-sense assumptions that are in no way provable. This makes some people deeply uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough that they lash out against any form of mysticism or intuitive knowing. Sure, the world is full of charlatans and scammers, but then so do we have sham research done on the corporate dime merely to have the appearance of scientific rigor. It doesn't mean that traditional forms of understanding and wisdom have no place.

To the contrary, there is a lot of richness to reality that can't be captured by measurements and control groups. Honestly I don't need to know the mechanics of every experience in my life. When people say "God told me..." and you get hung up on the person's beliefs and the definition of God you are bound to miss the relevant point.

[trapper]

Researchers are determining whether consciousness is a by-product of brain activity. Projects like blue brain aim to make this question something we can answer.

Can you expand on what assumptions we make that are in no way provable?

[dasil003]

You tell me the experiment that would show that consciousness is a by-product of brain activity and I'll tell you the assumption.

Blue Brain is a great project and will hopefully lead to many surprising discoveries, however how will it help us distinguish between a truly conscious entity and one that merely acts conscious?

[qbit]

Can we ever prove that someone or something is conscious and not just mimicking consciousness extremely well?

[rms]

There's no difference.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/04/zombies.html

[dasil003]

Great read, but irrelevant. The difficulty here is in determining what it means to "act conscious". We can agree that consciousness exerts influence on the world without knowing how to measure that influence exactly.

[trapper]

This sounds like mysticism wrapped up in psychology. If there is no measurable difference between two "beings", one a copy of the other but implemented in silicon, what would your conclusion be? Surely if consciousness is anything magical this will be impossible.

[dasil003]

That's way off base. You're not understanding my argument. Nobody said anything about magic.

The point is how can you ever verify that two beings react exactly the same to all stimuli? How are you determining "no measurable difference"? Setting aside the fact that silicon is measurably different from neural tissue, you still aren't any closer to answering the question "does the machine experience consciousness the same way I do as a result of its function?"

[trapper]

If there is no practical difference between artificial and real consciousness, the simplest answer is to conclude that consciousness derives from a specific neuron structure.