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cousin_it comments on How sure are you that brain emulations would be conscious? - Less Wrong
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Not every technique applies to every problem. Tabooing the word "fire" won't help you understand fire. Thinking really hard and using all those nice philosophical tools from LW won't help either. I think the problem of consciousness will be solved only by experimental science, not earlier.
Tabooing isn't about understanding what something is or how it works. It's about understanding what another person means when they use a word.
When you say "fire" you refer to a thing that you expect the listener to know about. If someone who doesn't speak English well asks you what is "fire" - asks you to taboo the word "fire" - you will be able to answer. Even though you may have no idea how fire works.
I'm asking to taboo "consciousness" because I've seen many times that different people mean different things when they use that word. And a lot of them don't have any coherent or consistent concept at all that they refer to. Without a coherent concept of what is meant by "consciousness", it's meaningless to ask whether "consciousness" would be present or absent in a WBE.