There is no proof that death means no consciousness.
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 5 votes and with 18 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Death: Body is no longer alive
Consciousness: Being aware of anything
Evidence: Scientific proof
When I say “I am conscious” I am stating that I can see objects distributed in space around me, that I can hear, smell and touch these objects and attend to different aspects of them. A report of a conscious experience can be spoken, written down, or expressed as a set of responses to yes/no questions—for example, when patients communicate by imagining playing tennis or walking around a house in an fMRI scanner (Monti et al., 2010)2. People can be asked to subjectively assess the clarity of their visual experience (Ramsøy and Overgaard, 2004), and their level of awareness of a stimulus can be extracted using indirect measures, such as post-decision wagering (Persaud et al., 2007)3.When people are not explicitly reporting their consciousness they can still be considered to be conscious on the basis of their external behavior. For example, Shanahan (2010) has argued that enhanced flexibility in the face of novelty and the ability to inwardly execute a sequence of problem-solving steps are a sign of consciousness, and the Glasgow Coma Scale uses motor responsiveness, verbal performance and eye opening to measure the level of consciousness in patients (Teasdale and Jennett, 1974). An overview of some of the different techniques for measuring consciousness is given by Seth et al. (2008).I will use “c-report” to designate any form of external behavior that is interpreted as a report about the level and/or contents of consciousness. This paper will primarily focus on verbal c-reporting, on the assumption that similar arguments can be applied to any form of behavioral report about consciousness. C-reporting will be interpreted in the fullest possible sense, so that every possible detail of a conscious experience that could be reported will be assumed to be reported.
One of the key problems with c-reporting is that it is hard to obtain accurate detailed descriptions of conscious states. Consciousness changes several times per second and it is altered by the act of c-reporting, so how can we describe it using natural language, which operates on a time scale of seconds? Shanahan (2010) has suggested that this problem could be addressed by resetting our consciousness, so that multiple probes can be run on a single fixed state (see section Platinum Standard Systems). People can also be trained to make more accurate reports about their consciousness (Lutz et al., 2002), and there has been a substantial amount of work on the use of interviews to help people describe their conscious states4. These problems have led to a debate about the extent to which we can generate accurate descriptions of our consciousness (Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel, 2007).
C-reports are typically transformed into natural language descriptions of a state of consciousness. However, natural language is not ideal for describing consciousness because it is context-dependent, ambiguous and it cannot be used to describe the experiences of non-human systems (Chrisley, 1995). It is also difficult to see how natural language descriptions could be incorporated into mathematical theories of consciousness. One way of addressing these problems would be to use a tightly structured formal language to describe consciousness (Gamez, 2006). Chrisley (1995) has made some suggestions about how consciousness can be described using robotic systems, although it is not clear to what extent these proposals could be play a role in a mathematical theory of consciousness.Measurement of Unconscious Information (Uc-Reports)The absence of a c-report about the level and/or contents of consciousness is typically taken as a sign that a person is unconscious or that a particular piece of information in the brain is unconscious. People can also make deliberate reports of unconscious mental content. For example, forced choice guessing is used in psychology experiments to measure unconscious mental content and visually guided reaching behavior in blindsight patients is interpreted as a sign that they have access to unconscious visual information. Galvanic skin responses can indicate that information is being processed unconsciously (Kotze and Moller, 1990) and priming effects can be used to determine if words are being processed unconsciously—for example, Merikle and Daneman (1996) played words to patients under general anesthesia and found that when they were awake they often completed word stems with words that they had heard unconsciously.
All of these types of unconscious reporting will be referred to as “uc-reports,” which are any form of positive or negative behavioral output that is interpreted as the absence of consciousness or the presence of unconscious information. While there will inevitably be gray areas between c-reports and uc-reports, it will be assumed that there are enough clear examples of both types to justify the distinction in this paper.
- Pro must explain how consciousness at all is proven or alternatively has to take the stance that consciousness itself isn't proven at all, Pro has decided to take neither stance so Con in Round 3 had to fight both angles at once.
- When we analyse how to prove consciousness being present, we realise that dead bodies lack any and all signs of consciousness, which is de factor proof of lack-of-proof-of consciousness.
Argument - Pro opens with a conspiracy theory that Scientists are known to not like unrealistic answers and offers no evidence to support this statement, though surprisingly Pro does still win round 1 as Cons response "free round" is completely insufficient and not much better than a forfeiture.
Unfortunately Pro wastes two rounds asking Con to present his evidence first, and "One may wonder where the proof is of consciousness at all. Does Pro declare the Kritik that consciousness itself isn't proven in the first place?" what little Con does say is more than enough to draw even with an opponent that wasted two rounds saying nothing.
In round 3 Con actually went in to extensive detail, and not only was this not countered, but Pro actually forfeited instead of producing an argument, and in round 4 Con produced further arguments which again was met with a completely insufficient response "I said that there is no proof".
In the end, Con produced at least two arguments. Pro produced none, and did not even make any rebuttals, therefore Con must win the argument.
Sources - Con produced a ton of sources in round 3. Pro made no claims that the sources did not say what was claimed, and made no complaint whatsoever and therefore it would be unfair for a voter to make claims that were never raised by Pro. On the otherhand Pro did not produce one single bit of evidence nor cite any sources, so this has to go to Con.
S & G - No major errors from either - tie
Conduct - Con "free round" is not much better than a Forfeiture. However Pro spending two rounds insisting that Con must make the opening argument is also not much better than two forfeitures, and to top it off, this is followed by an actual Forfeiture, therefore whichever way one looks at it, Pro has forfeited more than Con.
Foregone conclusion. One offered a single sentence per round and did not challenge any contentions from the other side when they were offered, the other offered a detailed case (which yes, he did delay seemingly to decrease the effective number of rounds, if not for the other side outright forfeiting I would have to consider conduct against him).
PRO forfeited and did not respond to CON's argument. Conduct to CON.
PRO did make an argument, CON didn't.
PRO simply asserted that it fell upon CON to prove his case. Should have called the debate "there is evidence that death means no consciousness" and been CON.
While it could have been worded more clearly, Con is the only one to actually argue his case, whereas Pro did not respond to anything.
Conduct to Con for pro forfeiting a round.
This is, perhaps, one of the easiest debates I have ever voted on, and it gives no pleasure to admit it, because it also happens to be on of the worst debates I've ever voted on. Neither opponent managed to take a consistent side of the argument since both utterly abandoned a confusing Resolution that, at first, presents as a double-negative, but, in the end, abandons even its negativity by declaring the topic is not the topic; a non-negative that argues neither for or against the Resolution.
Argument: With the confusion of the Resolution out of the way, Pro at least offered definition to the major components to the Resolution: Death, Consciousness, and Evidence. However, definitions offered, Pro seems to argue against the Resolution, although Pro, by arguing that death is a barrier through which one can obtain no evidence, which is exactly the thrust of Con's argument, that consciousness can only be "measured", and even argues THAT point, on living subjects. It's not a bad rebuttal, but it misses the point of the Resolution. In effect, Con wastes two rounds arguing nothing at all, and then moves the goalpost. Pro responds with 2 rounds of no argument. In total, the objective of the Resolution is abandoned to debate whether consciousness exists at all, dead or alive. Tie
Sources: Only Con offers sources, but all speak to the shift of the goal post: consciousness [dead or alive], therefore fail to support either side of the debate. Pro offers no sources. Tie.
Legibility: Unfortunately, the whole by both is frustratingly coherent, other than the drift off topic. Tie
Conduct: Both flirt with disaster relative to forfeit, dropping fully two rounds [40%] without valid argument. Declaring the opponent did not argue is not, itself, an argument. When there is nothing else offered but that complaint, it is a dropped round. Tie
The debate is finished now, if you want to vote.
No... you made a claim, therefore you have the necessary burden of proof - while your opponent also has a BoP, you also have one.
The way it seems to me, if madman is confident that he can beat you with minimum effort, he will put in the minimum effort.
He is supposed to go first.
Er.. usually Madman forfeits rounds to give his opponent another chance to present their evidence. In other words - for you to present an argument at all
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Lol maximum effort
So it was more than you forgetting to answer? After all, you've got many notifications about it.
Never reveal your 'why' to your enemy.
Also why did you forfeit the other argument?