Quantum consciousness...

[The Grand Nudger]

Don't see the difference, huh?

Perhaps that's because there isn't one?  It just might be that you imagine those other observations to be on more solid ground than any observation of consciousness - but they aren't.  Voltimeters don't actually observe an electricity, thermometers don't observe "heat", and watches don't observe time....at least not in the way you demand the word be taken in the case of consciousness.  Nevertheless, we do have tools available to us which observe consciousness just as any of those other tools measure their respective subjects.  

Consciousness isn't inferred as a physical explanation of other properties or observations.  There was never a moment when a non-conscious agent thought, "Hmmmmm. . . why are these bundles of organic materials acting like that?"

Consciousness is very much inferred, and on a constant bass.  You infer that I am conscious.  I infer that you are conscious.  Neither of us has actually run any tests on the other, or observed whatever process leads to our interactions here on these boards.  I'm willing to bet that you've never, in your entire life, cracked open a skull to observe consciousness...but that you nevertheless accept that the world around you is chock full of it.  

There's no philosophical quandary surrounding electrical current: we know what it is and how to look for it.  We have simple tests for determining its presence.  We are not required to make a philosophical assumption in order to believe in it.

We also "know what it is and how to look for it" when it comes to consciousness.  We have even simpler tests for determing the presence of consciousness than we do for determining the presence of an electrical current.  How do you feel today, Benny?  

Consciousness, by which I mean the capacity to experience qualia, cannot be demonstrated.  You SAY you can demonstrate it, but then you will trot out a bunch of physical correlates that wouldn't mean anything at all if we didn't already know what qualia were by our direct experience of it.  This borders on religious evidence: we already "know" what it is, and then we start looking around for things that we will consider evidence of it.

"Hur dur you're just like a religionist" cmon.  What I've told you is that we do, in fact, have tools to observe consciousness.  Tools -at least- as competent as any used to measure electrical current, temperature, and time.  Frankly, when it comes to consciousness we have less need of tools than we do with electrical current, temperature, or time.  

This should be obvious in another sense-- nobody can really dispute that it's a hot day.  That's because we all share access to the same observations.  We can DEFINITELY dispute whether a particular physical system might experience qualia-- from "only me" to "everything is a giant mind" and everything in between, and nobody can be proven right or wrong through observation-- there is assumption, and nothing else.

Noboday can really dispute...what..the actual fuck?  Not only do our bodies both represent and experience temperature in subjective ways - they do so only by inference and observation of physical correlates...and even in doing so have difficulty determining between the very hot or the very cold - nor can they give you the actual temperature with any reliability - and that;s assuming that you don;t have a fever or a chill.

 We're -much-....-much- better at at recognizing when some x in front of us appears to be conscious than we are at working out the sorts of simple information a thermometer provides. Our entire lives depend, meaningfully, upon it...so that;s not exactly surprising. For a human being, knowing that whats in front of you is a human being - for example, and not a rock..is of utmost importance to your survival.

No, I don't think you are unaware of that.  We say a robot is conscious if it can process light and sound and interact meaningfully with its environment.

Who says that?  Who is this we?

We do not seriously attempt to establish whether it experiences qualia subjectively.  But you have to seriously strain the meanings of several words in order to fit any concept of mind into your world view: awareness, conscious, mind, etc.

.......................?