Raúl
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Re:The Possibility of testing for consciousness - 2007/08/20 11:10
I’d say that testing for consciousness from a strictly scientific point of view is much of an unsolved problem. The root problem is that if consciousness is a purely subjective phenomenon there’s no way an objective test can detect it. That is actually the same problem you point out regarding zombies. Of course, sentience can be detected by your own introspection, but as your introspection is part of your subjective mind I cannot use an objective method to prove empirically that you are conscious. What’s left then? Your verbal report and your behavior. Observing them I can indeed infer that you are conscious like I am. But again, that is far from a scientific test. Actually that doesn’t prove anything. You could be a zombie fooling me, and because I have a strong tendency to grant the consciousness property to any other human I just believe that you are conscious. Obviously, this is more an act of faith that a scientific test.
If I change the strategy and I focus on functionality (this is much in the line of what I am doing in the field of machine consciousness) there’s the problem of epiphenomenalism. I could objectively test for the presence of some functionality that is related to consciousness (like attention, self-recognition, etc.). But it could be the case that all that functionality is present like in a zombie without any subjective experience at all.
Seth, Baars, and Edelman have proposed a set of criteria for consciousness in humans and other mammals [1]. As I mentioned above, accurate verbal report is usually a practically (if not scientifically) satisfactory approach for testing consciousness in humans. However, it cannot be used with other animals due to the lack of communication skills. Therefore, Seth, Baars and Edelman propose other alternatives for testing animals for consciousness (which I think are of course also valid for humans when verbal report fails for whatever reason). One account is to determine what are exactly the structures and the working patterns of the brain tissue that gives place to awareness and then look for them in other animals’ brains. It seems obvious (at least for some neuroscientists) that the presence of a strong/dense connection from Thalamus to the cortex is required for having consciousness. Another account is to design experiments where consciousness is required to perform a specific task. One example of this is the mirror test; however, much more elaborated and complex experiments can be envisaged in this line. For instance, being able to have “theory of mind” like we have could be a sign of consciousness. Note that by “theory of mind” I refer to the ability to put yourself in the place of another.
[1] Anil K. Seth, Bernard J. Baars, David B. Edelman. “Criteria for consciousness in humans and other mammals”. Consciousness and Cognition 14 (2005) pp. 119-139.
Raúl Arrabales Moreno. conscious-robots.com/raul |
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