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[LordBucket]

If we cannot trust our perceptions of reality to begin with, how can we determine that our perception of having a "soul" are real?

"Soul" is an interpretation. Which is why you and I both keep putting the word in quotes and why I keep talking about consciousness. Provided that you and I mean the same thing by the word, to be conscious...to be aware...if one is aware of their own awareness, I don't see much room for "misinterpretation" there.

Are you having an experience right now? Are you perceiving? Set aside the "what" you are or aren't perceiving, and set aside interpretations of what it is and what it means...are you observing? Are you perceiving? Are you experiencing?

If the answer is yes, then the answer is yes.

As you say, I cannot know whether the particular interpretation of my experience to say that I have a physical body...I can't know whether that interpretation is correct. My senses could be feeding e incorrect information. I could be misinterpreting the information I am receiving.

But the fact of having an experience is a fundamental. In my case, I assert that I am having an experience. I am having perception. I am conscious. You, reading me making that claim, might not be able to validate it because you are simply experiencing an experience that you interpret to be someone asserting that they're conscious. A robot could also make that claim. Or you could be in the matrix being fed an artificial experience. But, if you are having that experience, then you too, presumably, should be able to be aware of having that experience, and are therefore conscious.

robot.

It says it has one. We built it. We know every diode, every circuit, every line of code.

Does it have one?

I'm not in a position to be able to know. I can only speak to my own consciousness, because my own awareness is the only awareness that I'm aware of.

How can we trust any sensory input we have?

How can we possibly ascertain what is and is not actually real?

I don't believe we can. I

Correct. But if you're having sensory input, if you're experiencing sensation...than for our purposes it doesn't really matter whether anything you're experiencing is an accurate representation of anything, whether you're a brain in a box, or software running on a computer. If you are conscious, then you are conscious.

And incidentally, I would define "reality" as "that which is experienced." Because no other interpretation really makes any sense without making assumptions, like for example that an objective "outside world" even exists. Like you point out, we can't know whether there is or isn't an objective world outside our experience. But we can definitely know if we're having an experience.

[Max White]

"Never walk again" is not a statement you're allowed to make any longer.

11/10 would found a church worshiping those engineers as god like figures and have people wage war in their name 4,000 years later.

[LordBucket]

How do we know that we ourselves are not hallucenating the entirely of the universe?

We can't.

That's the point here.

If something is experiencing a hallucination, then consciousness exists. Objective reality is not required

How do we know that other people are real, and not simulation?

We don't. Which is what I've been saying all along:

I know of no means by which a third party can observe the conscious awareness of another. I am unable to answer whether dogs, insects or even humans are self aware. I am only aware of my own consciousness.

The universe may not exist, and you may be a brain in a tank, experiencing a complex interactive simulation. The brain itself has no sensory aparatus. It experiences ONLY what its external organs convey to it using electrical and biochemical signals, as far as we are able to determine. Since the brains we have examined are unable to tell truth from fiction, when a known fiction is applied, how can you be certain that you yourself are not actually experiencing a fiction?

Correct: the universe might not exist. You might not even have a brain. But if you are having an experience, that is something you are directly able to observe.

[wierd]

LB:

The second set of questions really wasnt aimed at you, but thank you for replying.  It was instead aimed rhetorically at the person just before, who asserted without reason that a soul cannot exist, without really thinking about that answer.

I asked questions intended to spark thought about that answer.

I would however, be wary of your response. It's too simple.

I am able to determine that I have experienced a sensation; I am unable to fully rationalize that I am an independent, fully actualized intelligence. Simply experiencing a stimulus does not equate to "Consciousness". 

I have grappled with this philosophical quandary for a great many years, attempting to answer it with force of logic. I have found only more questions that cannot be answered without assertions. If the answer relies on an assertion, it can be false. (Does not mean that it *is*, only that it *CAN*.)

It is an assertion for me to state that I have consciousness. I could just as easily just be a very complex set of algorithms attempting to grapple with a highly recursive set of problems, running face first into the hard limits imposed by information theory. 

As such, I consider it a disingenuous statement to assert outright that I am a real person.
I cannot authoritatively conclude that this is true. And believe me, "this phenomenon" has tried.

[Criptfeind]

"Never walk again" is not a statement you're allowed to make any longer.

Poor guy with the stupid light up ball, hard act to follow.

[wierd]

Well, the robot exosuit was actually kinda scooped awhile back by a japanese company...

Specifically, Cyberdyne's (Yes, the same as from the terminator movie... Something I found funny) "HAL" exoskeleton.

Link, featuring dramatic super sentai-esque posing by the model

And another link to a youtube video for the product--  <- note the date. 2011. 3 years ago!

[LordBucket]

It is an assertion for me to state that I have consciousness. I could just as easily just be a very complex set of algorithms
attempting to grapple with a highly recursive set of problems, running face first into the hard limits imposed by information theory. 

Are you having an experience right now? An experience that for convenience I will describe as "reading these words on the screen in front of you." I am not asserting that there is definitely a screen. I am not asserting that there are definitely words, nor that you definitely have eyeballs with which to read them. Words fail here, but I will trust that you are aware of the experience I am referring to here. Are you having that experience?

If so, what is it that's having the experience?

An unconscious, mechanical device acting out an algorithm might generate output based on input, but would it have an experience in the process of doing so?

[wierd]

Reading the words does not mean I am conscious. There are many artificial OCR programs that can hardly be given that appellation. There are even programs that correlate "Meaning" to the words written-- Take for instance, Watson, the IBM AI that played jeopardy.

Having deeply contemplated the concept of "Cogito ergo sum" to great length, I have concluded that it makes a false assertion. That I am able to recursively parse my own outputs as inputs in relation to other processes does not make me a fully self-actualizing actor. Any choice I make that could be considered a voluntary action could actually be nothing of the sort at all.

It is entirely possible that I have no free will at all.

[LordBucket]

Reading the words does not mean I am conscious. There are many artificial OCR programs that can hardly be given that appellation.

But do they have an experience?

[wierd]

I do not understand the question. To me, "An experience", can be described in very raw, and unpleasantly banal terms as little more than a reaction to a set of sensory stimuli.

As I put in an edit earlier--

There are even programs that correlate "Meaning" to the words written-- Take for instance, Watson, the IBM AI that played jeopardy.

Having deeply contemplated the concept of "Cogito ergo sum" to great length, I have concluded that it makes a false assertion. That I am able to recursively parse my own outputs as inputs in relation to other processes does not make me a fully self-actualizing actor. Many recursive sorting algorithms do this. Any choice I make that could be considered a voluntary action could actually be nothing of the sort at all.

It is entirely possible that I have no free will at all.

Being honest with myself, I fully accept this. I cannot escape this possibility.

[LordBucket]

The question of whether free will exists is different than the question of whether one is conscious. Consciousness is awareness. if you are aware of something, anything...then by definition you are conscious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

"Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel"

If you are aware of having an experience, regardless of the nature or validity of that experience, you are a conscious entity.

[wierd]

By that definition, many robots we have created already fully comply with being "conscious". 

[Tack]

How do we know? It's possible. After all our experiences just come down to an input and processing.

Give a computer a feedback loop and the ability for it to analyze the incoming and outgoing processes, and it may well have experiences.

[Sheb]

Damn, I hate Cartesians.

[LordBucket]

By that definition, many robots we have created already fully comply with being "conscious".

How would you know they're having an experience? If I put a nickel on table and push it...it acts on the input of being pushed by producing the output of moving. But does that action-->reaction indicate any awareness of the process? Action-->reaction is not conscious awareness. The fact that your robot is responding to an input or acting on an algorithm does not indicate awareness any more than the penny being pushed does.

Maybe these robots are aware of whats going on. I can't say. Nor can I say whether you are having an experience. But if your'e a conscious entity, you would know whether you're having an experience.

What definition for consciousness are you using where this doesn't make sense?