[ExI] Semiotics and Computability

[Christopher Luebcke]

Could one detect or measure consciousness on the basis of "behaviors and reports of subjective experiences" alone, without direct anatomical knowledge of a "brain and nervous system"?

Conversely, does a system with a "brain and nervous system" necessarily have consciousness, even in the absence of "behaviors and reports of subjective experience"?



----- Original Message ----
From: Gordon Swobe <gts_2000 at yahoo.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wed, February 17, 2010 6:05:51 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Semiotics and Computability

--- On Tue, 2/16/10, Christopher Luebcke <cluebcke at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Gordon, if I may ask directly: How do you determine whether someone, or 
> something, besides yourself is conscious?

I believe we know enough about the brain and nervous system to infer the existence of subjective experience in other animals that have the same kind of apparatus. 

We see that other people and other primates and certain other animals have nervous systems very much like ours, eyes and skin and noses and ears very much like ours, and so on, and from these physiological facts in combination with their behaviors and reports of subjective experiences we can infer with near certainty that they do in fact have subjective experiences.

-gts


      
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