. With a strict physical definition the problem is easy,
Solve it , then.
with your definition the phrase is meaningless.
Prove that.
I don't think I've ever tried to prove anything by redefining any words [..] my definitions are better,
But using them proves nothing?
Who are you communicating to when you use your own definitions?
You're asking this as though I maliciously misinterpreted what you mean by consciousness.
I am wondering who you communicate with when you use a private language>
Solve it , then.
Well, if you define pain exactly as "the state that follows damage and precedes the 'ouch'" then you would damage the robot, observe it say ouch, and then proclaim that it experiences pain. It's that simple. The fact that you asked, suggests that there's something you're seriously misunderstanding. But I can't explain it if I don't know what it is.
Prove that.
I feel like we've talked about this. In fact, here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/p7r/steelmanning_the_chinese_room_argument/dvhm
Remember when you offered a stupid proof that...
(This post grew out of an old conversation with Wei Dai.)
Imagine a person sitting in a room, communicating with the outside world through a terminal. Further imagine that the person knows some secret fact (e.g. that the Moon landings were a hoax), but is absolutely committed to never revealing their knowledge of it in any way.
Can you, by observing the input-output behavior of the system, distinguish it from a person who doesn't know the secret, or knows some other secret instead?
Clearly the only reasonable answer is "no, not in general".
Now imagine a person in the same situation, claiming to possess some mental skill that's hard for you to verify (e.g. visualizing four-dimensional objects in their mind's eye). Can you, by observing the input-output behavior, distinguish it from someone who is lying about having the skill, but has a good grasp of four-dimensional math otherwise?
Again, clearly, the only reasonable answer is "not in general".
Now imagine a sealed box that behaves exactly like a human, dutifully saying things like "I'm conscious", "I experience red" and so on. Moreover, you know from trustworthy sources that the box was built by scanning a human brain, and then optimizing the resulting program to use less CPU and memory (preserving the same input-output behavior). Would you be willing to trust that the box is in fact conscious, and has the same internal experiences as the human brain it was created from?
A philosopher believing in computationalism would emphatically say yes. But considering the examples above, I would say I'm not sure! Not at all!