There’s a difference in the case of consciousness worth pointing out. In the case of “alive”, we know a great deal about how all sorts of organisms work to accomplish the bag of things formerly thought of as the definition of “life”, enough that we no longer need to regard the word as anything but a rough pointer to that bag. (Pasteur knew none of that.) And on an even simpler level, we know enough about unheard trees to have dissolved the question of whether they make sounds as they fall. But we know nothing about the mechanisms of consciousness—we are still baffled by how there can be any such thing. To say that it arises from neurons is about as informative as saying that “life” arises from molecules—that is, not at all. We do not yet have the means to dissolve the question of what consciousness is and where it is present.
Yes, I think our position relative to consciousness is similar to Pasteur’s relative to life.
Nonetheless, here’s two exercises that I think are entirely possible today:
One: Try to to find an edge case of consciousness—someone or something that’s a bit like the analogue of a virus, where one might imagine appeals either way, based on different facts of the matter. How precisely can you describe what patterns are there/missing? (Hint in rot13 if having trouble thinking of an edge case: Crbcyr gnyx nobhg “pbeeryngrf bs pbafpvbhfarff”—jung unf fbzr ohg abg bguref?)
Two: Introspect on yourself, and try to identify some ability of yourself that is one of the “powers of your consciousness” (the analogues in life being big things like reproduction, or little things like doing fermentation), but that could in principle be absent. For example, I feel like my ability to subconsciously and fluently interpret my visual field as scenes and objects really contributes to my sense of consciousness.
Well my mind went into a completely different direction. What determines what happens in a play? Is it accurate to say that charcters in a play make decisions? I could imagine the stance that “the writer completely determines how the characters function interally so there is no wiggleroom for them to do anything” and “the actors project unconcious impulses into their characters and/or an actor can “run a foreign program” where which subtrate conciousness embodies the role doesn’t dictate what the role does, the role dictates what should happen”. Like The Doctor of the who is a somewhat consistent character that is played by differnt actors and written by different writers.
There’s a difference in the case of consciousness worth pointing out. In the case of “alive”, we know a great deal about how all sorts of organisms work to accomplish the bag of things formerly thought of as the definition of “life”, enough that we no longer need to regard the word as anything but a rough pointer to that bag. (Pasteur knew none of that.) And on an even simpler level, we know enough about unheard trees to have dissolved the question of whether they make sounds as they fall. But we know nothing about the mechanisms of consciousness—we are still baffled by how there can be any such thing. To say that it arises from neurons is about as informative as saying that “life” arises from molecules—that is, not at all. We do not yet have the means to dissolve the question of what consciousness is and where it is present.
Yes, I think our position relative to consciousness is similar to Pasteur’s relative to life.
Nonetheless, here’s two exercises that I think are entirely possible today:
One: Try to to find an edge case of consciousness—someone or something that’s a bit like the analogue of a virus, where one might imagine appeals either way, based on different facts of the matter. How precisely can you describe what patterns are there/missing? (Hint in rot13 if having trouble thinking of an edge case: Crbcyr gnyx nobhg “pbeeryngrf bs pbafpvbhfarff”—jung unf fbzr ohg abg bguref?)
Two: Introspect on yourself, and try to identify some ability of yourself that is one of the “powers of your consciousness” (the analogues in life being big things like reproduction, or little things like doing fermentation), but that could in principle be absent. For example, I feel like my ability to subconsciously and fluently interpret my visual field as scenes and objects really contributes to my sense of consciousness.
Well my mind went into a completely different direction. What determines what happens in a play? Is it accurate to say that charcters in a play make decisions? I could imagine the stance that “the writer completely determines how the characters function interally so there is no wiggleroom for them to do anything” and “the actors project unconcious impulses into their characters and/or an actor can “run a foreign program” where which subtrate conciousness embodies the role doesn’t dictate what the role does, the role dictates what should happen”. Like The Doctor of the who is a somewhat consistent character that is played by differnt actors and written by different writers.