This all seems to assume that there is only one “observer” in the human mind, so that if you don’t feel or perceive a process, then that process is not felt or perceived by anyone. Have you ruled out the possibility of sentient subroutines within human minds?
Hi JoshYou. Thanks for your very pertinent comment.
We are aware of the possibility of hidden qualia. It is a valuable hypothesis. Nevertheless, we found no empirical evidence to support it, at least in the literature on invertebrate sentience. If you will, you can view our project as a compilation and analysis of the existing evidence about the sentience of individual invertebrate organisms, as opposed to subroutines within those systems. Under this reading, what we call ‘unconscious processes’ would be understood as processes which are inaccessible to the organisms’s first-person perspective.
We are also aware that, on some accounts, one really does not need empirical evidence to determine whether a process (or subroutine or algorithm) is conscious. All of them are. On such an account, the relevant distinction is between processes that matter morally and those who don’t. Someone who endorsed this view should interpret our position as agnostic about (but compatible with) the thesis that there are hidden qualia.
This all seems to assume that there is only one “observer” in the human mind, so that if you don’t feel or perceive a process, then that process is not felt or perceived by anyone. Have you ruled out the possibility of sentient subroutines within human minds?
Hi JoshYou. Thanks for your very pertinent comment.
We are aware of the possibility of hidden qualia. It is a valuable hypothesis. Nevertheless, we found no empirical evidence to support it, at least in the literature on invertebrate sentience. If you will, you can view our project as a compilation and analysis of the existing evidence about the sentience of individual invertebrate organisms, as opposed to subroutines within those systems. Under this reading, what we call ‘unconscious processes’ would be understood as processes which are inaccessible to the organisms’s first-person perspective.
We are also aware that, on some accounts, one really does not need empirical evidence to determine whether a process (or subroutine or algorithm) is conscious. All of them are. On such an account, the relevant distinction is between processes that matter morally and those who don’t. Someone who endorsed this view should interpret our position as agnostic about (but compatible with) the thesis that there are hidden qualia.