Comment by jasfi

3 years ago

If you know I'm a human being, like you are, then you can safely assume I'm conscious.

As far as writing messages alone, that could be software.

Why can you assume other humans are conscious?

  • Every human has roughly the same nervous system, with the same structure and functional properties. Unless consciousness is some magical non-physical thing (which we have no reason to believe), it would be absurd to believe that that a healthy, awake, non-brain-damaged person isn't conscious.

  • Has someone written a better Turing test, like the Voight-Kampff test in Blade Runner, but to establish a conscious mind?

    • The difficulty is creating a test that passes all known humans, as well as some animals; while failing machine algorithms meant to reproduce human and animal behavior.

      Like so many fixed things in life, "consciousness" seems to be a frontier, not a demarcation.

      For instance, if you're having a lucid dream, are you conscious or unconscious?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness