Quantum consciousness...

[The Grand Nudger]

 
If you think talking is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of the subjective experience of qualia, then I have a Teddy Ruxpin doll who needs some SERIOUS reparations.

Did you ever get the impression that Teddy was conscious?  Mine wasn;t in the habit of expounding upon how it felt in a convincing way - still loved that fucking thing though, lol.  Blast from the past man, well remembered.

Observing conscious things is not observing consciousness, anymore than looking at a light bulb is observing electricity.

Observing electrified things isn't observing electricity?  That's an awfully torturous usage of the word observe - and it also means that a voltimeter can;t be used to observe electrical current. That a thermometer can;t be used to observe the temperature, and a that a watch can;t be used to observe time.  In any case, you're probably aware that we aren't limited to just watching a person mill around in a room.  We have better tools than that for observing consciousness - though that one is useful.    

So now you appeal to subjectivity?  I thought we were talking about scientific things-- you know, things that can be observed and measured.

What do you mean "now" - human beings are necesarrily subjective agents with necessarrily subjective minds, I said as much in the post before last?  If you think we can;t observe and measure the subjectivity of human beings...then you're sorely mistaken.  In any case, you;re being very...very sloppy here.  Our ability to observe consciousness does not equate to any ability to understand it's subjective meaning to any given person - any more than our ability to observe a spanish person speaking does not equate to any ability to understand what subjective meaning those words have to that person.  I have ear, but I don;t speak spanish. Similarly, we have instruments, but we don't speak brain. In the same vein, but in reverse, that something is subjective in nature, or has a subjective component, does not prevent us from making observations of that thing - or even from making objective statements regarding those observations.

Hopefully, as with spanish, we can learn the language. There are conditions, however, that would make that a practical impossibility. What if every brain essentially writes it's own language, and correlates it's own mental postulates with others over time and through experience until it has a transfer? This would be just about the most horrifying prospect to anyone who wanted to learn the language of the brain, but it's well within the realm of possibility and..at least to some extent, it's practically expected.

What, exactly, is the scientific value of any of this?  What's the scientific distinction between a p-zombie and me?  What if there's a new physical system that does really strange things in reaction to the environment-- how will I determine whether it can experience what things are LIKE?

That's a good question.  If there's no distinction - then you're either a p-zombie or something is wrong with the p-zombie postulate, or both.  What do you think?  
(I think it's both)

I don't know, what is it doing, what kind of system is it?  Asking a person to solve a problem in a vacuum is pointless. It may ultimately be that you can't determine that.

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Harkening back to your comments regarding AI right (and my own regarding animal rights)...as well as Teddy's hypothetical reparations....are you having difficulty in any of those regards?

Are you unsure of whether or not animals feel pain, for example...or whether or not Teddy did?  How about people? You're asking me how you might do these things...but I supsect that you have at least some idea. Enough, at least, to know that your doll wasn't conscious, people are, and that animals (despite acting "strangely" from our POV...ever seen them line up to be slaughtered..fucking weird) were -at least- somewhat conscious or conscious of some things. How did -you- determine any of -that-?

I think that you're on to something, and I think that you made observations and then leveraged those observations in inference - and even though your observations aren't as detailed, thorough, or methodically sound as the observations of nueroscientists - I think that they can be ascribed some measure of reliability. Just imagine how much more reliable they;d be if you had better tools (or accepted the validity of tools in observing phenomema in the first place...lol, wtf?)...like nueroscientists do, eh?

PS: we don't debate this issue, you and I. You say crazy shit, and I remind you of all the ways that what you've said is crazy shit.