(October 28, 2013 at 8:55 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I don't think your argument really addresses the fundamental issue. Consciousness (and by this, I mean the ability to actually experience qualia) cannot be seen, directly observed, or measured. All you can do is identify brain functions and correlate them with behaviors (like speech) which SEEM typical of consciousness. All the things you mentioned can be said equally of a philosophical zombie (i.e. an entity that behaves as though conscious but has no actual experience): the child-zombie's behavior can change as it becomes a teenage-zombie, and again as it matures into an adult-zombie. Death leads to the cessation of the zombie-behaviors. Imbalanced brain chemistry leads to altered functiong of the zombie brain, and altered behavior exhibited by the zombie.
None of these physical observations explain why there is consciousness in the universe rather than not. Nor can they (or any other method) prove that any behavior means a biological system is actually experiencing.
As for the awareness of self: it is not my own behaviors that allow me to know that I experience qualia: it is rather my experience of qualia which through the course of my life has allowed me to form ideas about people, about behaviors, about brains, etc. My entire existence depends on qualia-- that is a brute fact. Interpretations about where those qualia come from are secondary.
Remember that the observation upon which science depends is an observation not of physical obects, but of qualia: your sight and sound impressions. Those are indisputably true. The physical monist model is an interpretation.
I think this has been discussed before - but all the things mentioned cannot be said of a philosophical zombie. Certain behaviors - specifically, self-referential ones - are not possible without the ability to experience.
