Seeing red

[bennyboy]

Nor do I.  I'll allow anything that meets the criteria we use to judge consciousness in other human beings hold that same title -as- conscious.  Further I doubt that our own criteria are exhaustive....but it's what we have to go own.   While they may not ultimately be, just as I cannot prove that you (or you, Benny) are conscious...making a special pleading argument (ala "-you- are conscious but that other thing only -seems- to be conscious") would eliminate my ability to use reason to make any statements on consciousness, what it is, and what has it, at all.  

I truly -would- be groping in the dark, rather than reaching for the stars from a footstool...as I may be now.

(We bounce this stuff off of each other to refine not only our thoughts but the words we use to communicate them, eh?  No sweat there and I've certainly had my share of those moments.)

I think this is the essence of our difference in this:

You see the human mind as a rule, established by behavior, and are willing to extend that rule to non-human physical systems with similar behaviors unless you have a good reason not to.

I see the apparent lack of mind in the majority of objects as the rule, and I'll extend that rule to all objects unless I have sufficient reason to believe it doesn't apply.  But given advanced robotics and computing, I don't think behavior is a sufficient reason, since behaviors can (or could reasonably soon) be mimicked.

I find it ironic that as a materialist, you find it easy to see mind in many things, and as an idealist (kind of), I find it so easy not to believe that things have minds as I do, even when they might seem to.