is there experimental proof for consciousness?

Question

Descartes..I think therefore I am...has to be the baseline for all philosophy and/or science but subjective results are taken into account now with experiments involving quantum theory...this implies that consciousness is more than just a chemical process...please this is a proper question asked out of pure interest...thanks

what is the mccudgeon paper..quick search and cant find it...even wiki?????

Answer 1

yes - read the mccudgeon paper

Answer 2

It is a proper question to ask but a difficult one to answer. First one clarification. Quantum physics pays a lot of attention to the role of the oberver in any measurement. The main reason is that the observer can affect the measurement. Relativity also takes care, in a different way, to record measurements in reference frames specific to the observer. Neither of these is subjective. Any observer in my reference frame will observe precisely what I do. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle doesn't care who the observer is, just that there is an observer. And of course all experiments must be careful that the observer isn't distorting the results. Solar cell B produces less electricity, not because it's round, but because I'm casting a shadow on it.

I don't think that 'cogito ergo sum' needs to be the baseline for philosophy or science. Nevertheless, we are left with the real question, "What is consciousness?" That was, and still is, an excellent question.

We get some clues from studying people who, through illness or injury, lose it. We must make clinical decisions regarding when a person dies. Is that when the heart stops beating? When brain activity stops? When does a baby first have consciousness? There's plenty of evidence that it's before birth. But when does it happen? Is it some specific event? Is it when brainwave activity starts?

We are becoming more capable of studying it from the other end also. We can synthesize many of the materials and processes that constitute life. But we haven't created life. We'll have another clue when we can't make further progress. We'll never be able to prove that only God can create life. We could disprove it only by doing it ourselves. If we did that, the next question is whether only God can create conscious life. The next would be whether only God can create a human spirit.

Do you consider plants as having consciousness? Animals? Some animals? The more we learn, the more we see that we haven't learned.

Answer 3

Hi,

I don't believe there is any experimental proof for consciousness, why? Well consciousness is undeniably and essentially a first person experience, the only access to it that a third party might have is through the behavior of the subject, both verbal and nonverbal. What ever behavior the subject displays it is at least conceivable that they are not conscious. That is to say how can consciousness be demonstrated merely by what a person says or does, for what ever that behavior may be we could imagine that they are just conditioned to behave in that way.

Looking around the room and noticing their is a chair in it, really wont do. It may convince the subject that they are conscious but it would be an odd subject that did not already know that they were conscious. But the third party has no access to that experience.

Just for the record, the cogito is not the base line for all philosophy, which has moved on a pace since Descartes. Furthermore, collapse of wave equation in quantum mechanics is not subjective since it can be observed, though you might argue that quite what constitutes observation in such is debatable.

Answer 4

there isn't a way to prove consciousness, and consciousness doesn't exist. or rather... consciousness is an emergent property of the matter that constitutes the brain. its not generated by it, not linked to it, it is it. .... so your question becomes: does the brain exist? yes, but consciousness isn't separate ... so its not a thing at all. ..... Descartes was a idealist(in the philosophical sense).. i.e. a decent mind drowned by subjectivity and semantics.
real answers have nothing to do with human minds. take psychology for example, its studying the same thing as neuroscience... but one is alot more accurate than the other lol.
idealists are always saying the mind is whats real, and everything else maybe... soooo far from the truth. take a drug, get a lobotomy, then tell me the mind is all thats real! hahaha isnt your brain part of that "external" reality? morons living in their heads lol and no, it isnt the baseline for science or for the other half of philosophers who disregard the mind and look for external data.. and that is whats held to be true.

Answer 5

According to Ayn Rand:

If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. One cannot be self-conscious without first being aware of something other than one's awareness. The axiom of consciousness is different from Descartes' Cogito principle in that Descartes' Cogito is an a priori principle, while Rand's axiom of consciousness is a self-evidency only available in perception.

So the experiment you could perform is to look around the room and notice a few things. Then ask who told you there is a chair in the room.

Answer 6

Not to contradict all the philosophers here, but it's not a matter of proving conciousness, it's more a matter of defining it. Conciousness isn't some theoretical force that scientists are struggling to find. It's an observed state. People invented the word to describe something they percieved.
Philosophers, which is Greek for "Someone who would starve if they had to find a real job" like to declare that they've discovered some great truth of reality when all they're doing is playing with semantics and applying their own distorted definitions to common terms and ideas.

Answer 7

Descartes' N=1, but his error rate is zero.

Answer 8

I just wanted to say I think this is a cool question.