Comment by adamisom
3 years ago
A disturbing extension of that is if there's some M>N such that only some humans possess M (and others N). I think this must be so (I have a Down's-syndrome relative), the disturbing question is if there's a distribution of humans on gradients from N to M (probably M close to N imo).
Yes. Inevitably, the legal definition would turn out to be "whatever a person not legally brain-dead can experience, maybe" just so we couldn't say any human in a coma is "not possessing consciousness." After all, some comas last for years.
In other words, it's just not ever going to be a scientific concept. There are components of it that are.