My previous post on consciousness, responding to Ted Slingerland’s views, attracted great responses that deserve a more detailed explanation. Ryan Overbey addresses my claim that scientific experiment cannot disprove consciousness because such experiments depend on experience and perception:

You say “experience and perception” presume consciousness. In that case, consciousness for you seems to be defined as any system of taking in sensory data, storing information about that data, and processing that information. Am I reading that correctly? We have computer programs that can do these things. Would they fit your criteria for consciousness. If so, cool! If not, why not?

The answer to the question here is: absolutely not. Taking in empirical data and processing it, in the way that a computer program does, does not count as experience, perception or consciousness. Why? Continue reading →