Can you provide a definition for consciousness? Perhaps you have a different notion than most people keep in mind (even if they are unable to explain).
I'm using a very simplistic definition of the term. Essentially, anything that responds to input is "alive." I'm actually basing it on the notion the author gives since he considers rabbits as being "concious." I'm not sure rabbits are self-aware though in the sense that humans are, ie., becoming a "strange loop" as Douglas hofstadter would put it. Self-awareness is one thing, conciousness, as the author presents it, is another thing.
The thing is, externally, one can talk about a nation in the same ways we talk about a person in the same ways we talk about a group or even a couple. You can consider it responding to input and even being "self-aware" as an entity, even being deliberating. A materialist doesn't believe in the immaterial, s/he can only judge an entity by observing its reaction to stimula, so as far as s/he can judge, the materialist can observe the US from the outside, and apply the duck rule[1] to conclude it's concious.
However, I'm not talking about qualia[1]. Qualia, a materialist would say, is an illusion. But, again, going by the author's definition, I'm not sure we can say whether rabbits or flies experience qualia, and qualia is sort of a hard to thing to reason about from the outside of the head. For me, the question of qualia is a much more interesting argument against materialism.
Disclaimer: I'm not sure I'm a materialist, but I'm a scientist by trade, so I have to work in that mindset. Still, I never felt comfortable with it.
>However, I'm not talking about qualia[1]. Qualia, a materialist would say, is an illusion. But, again, going by the author's definition, I'm not sure we can say whether rabbits or flies experience qualia, and qualia is sort of a hard to thing to reason about from the outside of the head. For me, the question of qualia is a much more interesting argument against materialism.
Nobody says qualia are an illusion, in the sense of not really existing. People just say, "Qualia are not metaphysically spooky and immaterial; they're things your brain makes."
Anything that responds to input? So a Roomba or those little robot dinosaur pets? Nginx hooked up to a photosensor?
Also: A materialist view of consciousness does not need to examine from the "outside". After we have figured out what consciousness is, then it's a matter of examining whatever bits of matter there are and seeing if they have the right properties. Of course that requires some serious breakthroughs, ones some folks are convinced aren't possible.
