This thread has gone back and forth several times concerning the reality
of consciousness. So at the risk of extending it further unnecessarily,
let me give my view, which seems self-evident to me, but I'm sure isn't
to others (meaning they may reasonably disagree with me, not that
they're idiots (though I'm open to that possibility too)).
1) I'm talking about the "hard question" of consciousness.
2) It is real, as it clearly influences our thoughts. On the other hand,
though it feels subjectively like it is qualitatively different from
other aspects of the world, it probably isn't (but I'm open to being
wrong here).
3) We cannot currently define or measure it, but some day we will.
4) Until that day comes, it's really hard to have a non-trivial
discussion of it, and too easy to fly off into wild theories concerning it.
An analogy: How do you know that humans have blood flowing through their
veins? Looking at them, you can't tell. Dissecting them after death, you
can't tell -- they have blood, but it's not moving. Cutting them while
alive produces spurts of blood, but that could be just because the body
is generally pressurized, not because there's any on-going flow through
the veins. It requires observing the internals of the body while alive
to determine that blood actually flows all the time. And it also helps a
lot to have a model of the circulatory system that includes the heart as
a pump, etc.
With consciousness, we're at the pre-scientific stage, because we know
so little about cognition that we're not yet able to open it up and
observe it as it operates. This will change, hopefully in my lifetime.
-------------------------------------------
agi
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