![]() Do you check that box when you recognize yourself in the mirror? Or do you need deep existential though and thorough knowledge of your subconsciousness and your relationship to the world and its history? In that case, many humans would fail that test. Does it mean "knowing you're an entity separate from the rest of the world"? I think self-driving cars can check that box. I believe self-awareness is vague and relatively unimportant. Google "When computers become", and "self aware" is the second suggestion. Self-awareness is often seen as a big and crucial thing. It would be strange, it would overhaul our understanding of consciousness, it would redefine pet rocks - but it doesn't make it immoral for us to stand on rocks. It literally doesn't care what you do to it. ![]() It doesn't experience pain or joy or fear or love. But it doesn't have any feelings associated with that. When we stand on them, we slightly compress their structure and rocks somehow hold an internal observer that is aware of that. Perhaps we discover that rocks are conscious. In these terms, consciousness is not the threshold of morality. In that case, standing on cats is not recommended. Defining morality as a system that tries to generate long-term positive experiences and to reduce negative experiences seems to work pretty well. Standing on a cat seems to produce deeply unpleasant feelings for the cat. Standing on a rock probably doesn't generate any observations - certainly not pleasant or unpleasant ones. I believe sentience is the bedrock of morality. Consciousness is a prerequisite: without internal observer, there is nothing to experience these feelings. A sentient entity is a system that can experience feelings, like pleasure and pain. Once again, I propose a more limited definition. Wiktionary has a definition for sentient that includes human-like awareness and intelligence. Wikipedia claims that consciousness is sentience. I think that is the unique ability of a conscious individual or system. Take the very core of that: not the intellectual observations connected to it, not the feelings associated with it, just the fact that a mental image exists. Hello, 'observer'! You probably have eyes. At this very moment, these words are being read. A conscious entity is a system with an "internal observer". "Consciousness" is often taken to mean "what we are". ![]() Feel free to propose different terms for the concepts below! Consciousness ![]() Clearly separating these terms makes it a lot easier to conceptualize a larger "spectrum of consciousness".ĭisclaimer: I expect some people to be upset for 'taking' terms and changing their definition. The words are often used interchangeably, causing people to think they are all the same or very closely related. Yet, I feel like there is no clear consensus about the meaning of those terms. The terms in the title are commonly used in crucial debates surrounding morality & AI. ![]()
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