Who knows? Maybe all matter is conscious and brains just have more complex consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness is unsolved and panpsychism is one hypothesis.
Yeah, but you can’t base moral decisions on “who knows?” You have to base them upon what you do know. Of course, you could be wrong, because anybody could be wrong. You do the best you can based upon the information you have.
I think moral decisions should make some allowances for gaps in our knowledge. It wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t use anaesthesia on babies because we assumed they couldn’t feel pain. Consciousness remains a pretty conspicuous gap in our knowledge, I’m not sure moral decisions can safely disregard known unknowns.
I’m not sure we understand consciousness thoroughly enough to make such a confident claim.
You think that you can have consciousness without a brain?
Who knows? Maybe all matter is conscious and brains just have more complex consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness is unsolved and panpsychism is one hypothesis.
Yeah, but you can’t base moral decisions on “who knows?” You have to base them upon what you do know. Of course, you could be wrong, because anybody could be wrong. You do the best you can based upon the information you have.
I think moral decisions should make some allowances for gaps in our knowledge. It wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t use anaesthesia on babies because we assumed they couldn’t feel pain. Consciousness remains a pretty conspicuous gap in our knowledge, I’m not sure moral decisions can safely disregard known unknowns.