Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

turnip_burrito t1_j9rj81h wrote

Maybe, who can tell?

4

LambdaAU t1_j9vukof wrote

This will be an actually testable hypothesis soon so we could actually gain a lot of information towards understanding consciousness.

1

OtterPop16 t1_ja6jspy wrote

Can you test for quality or subjective experience? I don't think you can. We can make inferences for living things based on observing the nervous systems, especially those similar enough to ours like vertebrates and especially mammals.

But for other things? What does it feel like to be a nematode? Or a starfish with no central nervous system?

I mean, epistemologically, you can only know that you're having subjective experience.

1

LambdaAU t1_ja6tc7j wrote

You could have this experiment done on yourself and then document your experience. I suppose you would be able to tell wether or not your consciousness was expanded and make deductions based on that.

1