It isn't merely an "interesting perspective." It is a strong definition for any type of consciousness one might want to talk about, and it sums up just about all the research that has been done in both cognitive science and robotics.
Furthermore it outlines very plausible mechanisms for each level.
The fact that you dismiss it as merely an "interesting perspective," then move on immediately to more criticism of the lack of "connections to an internal subjective state" sort of betrays your real motives, even if you aren't consciously aware of them.
That is somewhat laughable. The link you presented was hand-wavy as hell. The interesting perspective I was referring to was your own about how you see other people who, like me, think you are missing a concept when it comes to consciousness.
I do not see anything in the link about how to put something together and make it see red the way a conscious person does (or similar). Again, behavior, over and over again. One trick pony I suppose.
But that is just your misguided and misinformed perspective.
Thank you for your opinion.
In fact, the behaviorists and computationalists make more connections to that "internal subjective state" than anyone else.
Really, this discussion ( which is mirrored in a thousand other places on the internet ) boils down to the same repeated template:
1) Someone who cares about the science has a theory about how subjectivity arises.
2) Someone who is invested in woo shoots it down because science isn't woo.
That's it. Plain and simple. People invested in woo -- like yourself -- will just never be happy with a logical scientific explanation.
That's what you don't even realize about yourself. If we ironed out a theory about how your EM-antennae neurons generated consciousness, you would continually throw in a magic bean at lower and lower levels rather than accept the facts of reality. You will never be content with a scientific explanation, no matter how advanced science becomes.
First off, any ideas I have or do not have about neurons is not directly related to the topic at hand. Secondly, I have said this before, and will say it again, I say let the people who are doing Science do their job. That is an anti-woo perspective, or am I missing something?
I will be content with a scientific explanation of consciousness. Consciousness is, first and foremost, as we know it so far, and can know it as of yet, BIOLOGICAL in origin. You and your hard-core AI brethren just do not get that. Figure out the biological basis of consciousness, then put it into machines. Is that too much to ask?
Your argument types (1) and (2) do not cover what I have been trying to get at myself. Science, if it is to be applied to consciousness as a study, needs to be thought of in a way that it is not thought of today. Instead of being about "The Natural World", it needs to be understood to be about exploring consciousness itself in an epistemology sense.
You did not define consciousness either, BTW.
The woo of your belief system is that complexity leads to consciousness. At some magical point, each one of the stages in the ConsScale leads to the others with more complex behavior, as if physics and not just information, might have something to do with it. Do you even understand at all what I mean when I speak of a possible physics basis of consciousness? Probably not.
Play with your robots and programs with my blessing (not that you need it). Just, please do not lie and say you understand what causes consciousness, because, beyond it most likely being a premature assertion, it is also clearly an unfounded one as well.
You know, the most interesting thing about this is that there are people who are saying you are missing a concept and yet you continue just to repeat the shibboleths of complexity, behaviorism and so on. Maybe you should try and figure out what the hell they are talking about? Even if they are wrong, try and get in their head and show why, or something.
