RE: Is God a logical contradiction?
February 18, 2020 at 6:37 pm
(This post was last modified: February 18, 2020 at 7:08 pm by John 6IX Breezy.)
Quote:Behavioural correlates of consciousness and reportability: Traditionally, we assess consciousness by observing behaviour. If someone is awake and acts meaningfully, we have little doubt he is conscious […] But behaviour can be misleading: a person may walk and speak in her sleep, yet it is quite dubious whether she is experiencing anything.
Neural correlates of consciousness: The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) have been defined as the minimal neural mechanisms that are jointly sufficient for any one conscious percept, thought or memory, under constant background conditions […] However, there is no consensus on whether any of these signs can be treated as reliable 'signatures' of consciousness (Tononi and Koch, 2015, p. 2).
The above quotation was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. If you are unfamiliar with the journal, it is the oldest and arguably most prestigious scientific journal in existence, having published notable scientists from Isaac Newton to Stephen Hawking. Not that it matters; I just wanted to show off that I know my stuff lol. My arguments are built on a better foundation than google searches and Wikipedia articles.
That said, I've mentioned: "Such correlations are possible for humans because we have language, and we can communicate (presumably) our consciousness to others, and correlate it with behavior or neural activity." You can also experience your own consciousness despite not being able to observe consciousness and/or its accompanying mental states in others. Your voltage analogy doesn't apply.
Reference: Tononi G, Koch C. (2015). Consciousness: Here, there and everywhere? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 370.