At that point, though, you could make the same argument about a rock. Prove that this rock is not conscious.

The context, though, is that Data is both credibly conscious and self aware, and they all know a plausible mechanism for him to have consciousness and self awareness, in a way that's recognizably human in form. The more alien a (supposed) consciousness is, I think the more work you'll have to do in justifying the application of those labels.

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hparadiz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

There's been exhaustive studies on this comparing our ability to think to the next smartest beings on the planet the Chimpanzees and the Bonobos. If Star Trek were real there'd be exhaustive studies on the difference between Humans and Vulkans too. The difference between us and other Hominids is very small from pure difference in DNA but obviously there's many things humans can do that other hominids can't. Anyway I think one thing for consciousness is the mirror test. Which many animals can pass. Even some ants apparently.

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		> Even some ants apparently. I need to write this up properly someday but an ant from my colony that had almost drowned in honey showed some similar characteristics of consciousness... After giving them a drop of honey, I left for 15 minutes and came back to an ant being stuck and motionless in the drop. I fished it out, rinsed it off in some water and then put it on a tissue to dry. I blew on it for 10 minutes and then saw some motion in the legs... a short moment after, it began wriggling about and then sat on its abdomen like a cushion and sat there for 5 minutes, looking like it was contemplating life and the ordeal it went through. Once that 5 minutes was up, it returned to being an ant and started looking for its home, I brought it back and it went back into its nest. I made up for the mistake by bringing the ant back to life and it showed me behaviour I never saw or heard of before (with no supporting mentions anywhere on the net). (For the record, honey delivery is now more controlled to avoid these sticky situations, I'm not mad enough of a scientist to actually try this again for more results.) Recently, they've started putting fly wings of the fruit flies that they get fed, on top of their water feeder to get my attention... it's really interesting to see them get creative. The ant colony is 4.5 years old and numbers in about a dozen of workers at about 2mm in length, they only had 6 workers and a plump golden queen when I found them nested in one of my houseplants!