12-16-2015, 07:48 PM
I'd like to offer an observation that may help this discussion, one related to the Turing test. (What some refer to as true intelligence and consciousness are IMHO at least very similar concepts, if not identical.)
It is impossible, from the outside, to determine for sure whether something you are interacting with is conscious. You know that you are conscious, but it is logically possible that everyone else is a soulless zombie that happens to be extremely cleverly programmed. And you have no way of knowing whether someone else's qualia are the same as yours, even if they refer to the same object.
However, interacting with other humans is much easier and more effective if one assumes that they are conscious. I presume that the same would be true if dealing with nonhuman sophonts; unfortunately, one can't be sure because it is far from certain that there are currently any such on Earth. (At the moment, possible candidates include dolphins, orcas, the "great apes" and possibly elephants.)
It is impossible, from the outside, to determine for sure whether something you are interacting with is conscious. You know that you are conscious, but it is logically possible that everyone else is a soulless zombie that happens to be extremely cleverly programmed. And you have no way of knowing whether someone else's qualia are the same as yours, even if they refer to the same object.
However, interacting with other humans is much easier and more effective if one assumes that they are conscious. I presume that the same would be true if dealing with nonhuman sophonts; unfortunately, one can't be sure because it is far from certain that there are currently any such on Earth. (At the moment, possible candidates include dolphins, orcas, the "great apes" and possibly elephants.)