Philosophical zombies

[polymath257]

The definition I would use to determine sentience would say that isn't possible.

The problem is that you are elevating an epistemological stance to an ontological certainty.

I am using the exact same operational definition that I use for ordinary people: if they act like they are aware, then they are. I don't consider the question to even be meaningful otherwise.

Someone else mentioned conscious sedation. While that is a very interesting phenomenon, in practice it is *very* easy to tell the difference between ordinary behavior and conscious sedation.

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I think the problem with that view is that it ignores the possibility that the difference is very much to do with the difference in consciousness... and despite the fact you can tell that the difference is the explanation for the difference in consciousness.... the vital point is [i]you still don't know [u]which one is conscious or why that one and not the other. And is that not a possible hard problem?

There is only -the- hard problem.  The hard problem of consciousness is the notion that consciousness is not (or may not be) explicable by reference to a functional definition of the operation of a physical system.  

What you are discussing is considered a soft problem. Determining which physical system, or which parts of two comparable systems, are the relevant bits to consciousness.   Between us, and between those who seek to explain consciousness, a "difference in consciousness" is explained by a difference in the system that produces it.  Individual brains, individual consciousness.  If it is understood that, broadly, brain type x produces consciousness as we know it, that we are all meaningfully type x..but that one subject is type y.  Either type y is also conscious..as n they are both conscious, type x is not conscious (and the rest of us are not conscious), the very difference between x and y describes and defines which of the two would be conscious and unconscious, or the specified difference is immaterial to consciousness.   

OK, so we start with a collection of people who we know (or assume) are conscious. We compare them to others that we know (or assume) are not conscious (say, they are asleep---does that qualify?). We do very precise brain scans and find the differences in how the brains operate between those accepted as conscious and those not.

If we find such differences, and they consistently give the correct answers for those we all agree about, how is that *not* an explanation of consciousness?

Yes, it is the 'soft' problem of consciousness, but how does that NOT solve the supposed 'hard' problem? We have then found the *mechanism* for consciousness, right?

Now, I am NOT saying this is where we are currently (although I suspect we are much closer than many philosophers would think). But is that not a way to solve the questions of consciousness?

Simply saying it is an internal state doesn't mean it isn't produced by an operationally detectable collection of events.