From: *Stathis Papaioannou* <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 at 10:09 am, Bruce Kellett
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
If the theory is that if the observable behaviour of the brain is
replicated, then consciousness will also be replicated, then the
clear corollary is that consciousness can be inferred from
observable behaviour. Which implies that I can be as certain of
the consciousness of other people as I am of my own. This seems to
do some violence to the 1p/1pp/3p distinctions that
computationalism rely on so much: only 1p is "certainly certain".
But if I can reliably infer consciousness in others, then other
things can be as certain as 1p experiences....
You can’t reliable infer consciousness in others. What you can infer
is that whatever consciousness an entity has, it will be preserved if
functionally identical substitutions in its brain are made.
You have that backwards. You can infer consciousness in others, by
observing their behaviour. The alternative would be solipsism. Now,
while you can't prove or disprove solipsism in a mathematical sense, you
can reject solipsism as a useless theory, since it tells you nothing
about anything. Whereas science acts on the available evidence --
observations of behaviour in this case.
But we have no evidence that consciousness would be preserved under
functionally identical substitutions in the brain. Consciousness may be
a global affair, so functionally equivalence may not be achievable, or
even definable, within the context of a conscious brain. Can you map the
functionality of even a single neuron? You are assuming that you can,
but if that function is global, then you probably can't. There is a fair
amount of glibness in your assumption that consciousness will be
preserved under such substitutions.
You can’t know if a mouse is conscious, but you can know that if mouse
neurones are replaced with functionally identical electronic neurones
its behaviour will be the same and any consciousness it may have will
also be the same.
You cannot know this without actually doing the substitution and
observing the results.
Bruce
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