Thread by @nagotejena

How do you know if an object / being is really conscious?

- existentially crisis thread -

Well, you don't. You will never be 100% sure. Because consciousness is a super subjective experience. "You" will be never in another person experience.

The best you can do is only to compare yourself to another object/being. Measure how they could express the same emotion, talk the same language, gag the same reflexes.

Then you can say they might be conscious.

You can say your friend is conscious, your pet is conscious, but your plant is not conscious, your microwave is not either.

But what if your plant can talk? and what if your microwave can cry?

We might consider our judgement again. We always compare it to ourselves

The same thing happened when using a brain imagery machine. We just relate a person's subjective experience to their brain's activity. And somehow we are sure that they are conscious and well.

This is only a simple and careless way to answer "easy problem" of consciousness.

Why?
Because we already have the premise THAT scanned person is conscious!

The "hard problem" of consciousness need us to really layed out how a dead matters and particles.. could made something conscious like human.

Meanwhile the same particles also made a not-conscious stone.

This problem will never be solved. Even until sapien's extinction..

Because maybe.. just maybe..
The answer is something that is too frightening for us..

The answer like :
"Consciousness is just a subjective illusion"

- the end, now you have existential crisis -