> consciousness is a philosophical issue, not a scientific one
But surely it is both? It may be true that philosophy is the only line of inquiry that allows us to explore very far due to a lack of scientific progress, but but even a purely philosophical exploration has scientific implications, and even if we don’t have scientific answers in practice, that doesn’t means that there are no answers in principle.
Arguably the single most critical tenet of science is falsifiability. For something like consciousness, falsifiability is completely out of the question as we have no way to evaluate it whatsoever, let alone falsify claims made one way or the other.
Critical in terms of the scientific method itself, sure.
But the unfalsifiability of consciousness only points to the hardness of the problem and the current limitations of science, not the importance of understanding consciousness and its implications.
Put another way, even if science can’t currently tell us anything solid about consciousness, the implications of what it can’t tell us are still highly relevant to the kinds of science we do, e.g. we still treat other humans as if they’re conscious and this forms the basis for most ethical decision making.
There's a difference between hard and impossible. Trying to create any sort of formal ideas around something that cannot be measured, quantified, or evaluated in any way, shape, or fashion (and may likely never be able to be so) is simply not possible. It's like trying to create a scientific framework for a God. It just doesn't work. As for ethics, one point we may differ is that I don't see consciousness as inherently leading to anything. Whether awful, or great, people have consciousnesses, or not, does not change my view of them.
You seem to be concluding that because the problem is difficult if not impossible to fully solve, there’s nothing that can be done at all.
You’re also suggesting that because something cannot be perfectly formalized, there’s no value in exploring the problem given what we do know. This seems problematic.
Regarding ethics; the point is not that consciousness is somehow itself responsible for ethics. The point is that despite our incomplete understanding of consciousness, we use our first person lived experience as a basis for collectively formulating rules about how we interact with other humans. The fact that I can’t formally prove that anyone around me is conscious or what it even means to be conscious doesn’t mean I should feel free to treat those people as non-conscious objects.
> Trying to create any sort of formal ideas around something that cannot be measured, quantified, or evaluated in any way, shape, or fashion
The fact that I’m having this conversation with you is a rebuttal to this.
You’re correct that there is a particular kind of measurement that we cannot currently take, i.e. some kind of lower level diagnostic of consciousness itself, whatever it is.
But I disagree strongly that there’s nothing to measure or evaluate. Just one simple example, but why is it that we all seem to experience pain? And how is it that we agree pain exists? Why would most people understand a question like “how bad is the pain on a scale of 1-10?”
We have drugs to help mitigate pain, and we have stats about how efficacious some drugs are vs. others, when one drug is more appropriate for a given situation, etc.
How does any of this exist if we have no way, shape or fashion to measure conscious experience?
The point I was making about ethics is that consciousness, or lack thereof, has nothing to do with how I treat other humans. Treat other people poorly, and they will treat you poorly - consciousness or not. So you treat people well not only out of an ethical consideration, but simply because it's the most beneficial way to act.
As for pain, you experience it because it's an evolutionary wiring in your brain to help you avoid harm. If you didn't recoil when putting your finger in fire, you'd risk severely damaging your finger. Pain saves you from yourself and is one of the most primitive stimuli we have. Even extremely simplistic multicellular creatures react to harmful stimuli or experience pain. Presumably you do not think they have a consciousness, but perhaps they do? The point of this is that there is no way to know anything. For all you know, it's even conceivable that a rock, or a star, or even a nucleus might have a consciousness. I strongly doubt all of these of course, but there is no way to conclusively say they do or they do not.
But surely it is both? It may be true that philosophy is the only line of inquiry that allows us to explore very far due to a lack of scientific progress, but but even a purely philosophical exploration has scientific implications, and even if we don’t have scientific answers in practice, that doesn’t means that there are no answers in principle.