I don’t think consciousness exists, at least not in the way people talk about it. First, there’s no clear definition that everyone agrees on. Second, there’s no way to test whether something has it. Does a cow have it? A dog? A spider? If you can't test for it and even define it, how can you claim its real?

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wordpad 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It certainly doesn't seem like consciousness exists. Although to disprove that hypothesis all we need is to find a single counter-example, which coincidentally all of us can provide via our personal experience of self.

It would be fine for an unconsciouss intelligence to maintain that hypothesis lacking any evidence to the contrary, but for us it seems we are just all gaslighting ourselves to ignore the one counter example we all have.

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k33n 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s possible that you’re not conscious. So your subjective view may be correct for you. To those who are conscious, this argument doesn’t really matter, and the proof is simply in the pudding.

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thepasch an hour ago | parent | next [-]

This is a religious argument. If you want to go down that path, then sure; but I suspect that's not what you actually believe.

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solveiga 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If we accept subjective feeling as definitive proof that something exists, that opens a Pandora’s box of entities. People have deeply held subjective beliefs about things like God, afterlife experiences, out-of-body experiences, and many others. It seems unfair to me to dismiss this kind of subjective evidence in these cases, while accepting it without question for experience of consciousness.

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anon291 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No conscious person can know if another person is conscious. There is no 'sensation' of experiencing another conscious. Given how many people can and have been fooled by AI, this lack of ability to sense another consciousness is clear.

	▲	selcuka an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That's the basis of the p-zombies thought experiment discussed (and dismissed without any real arguments) in the article.