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Is there any particular reason to believe that a salads might be capable of consciousness? No
How can you tell without "any satisfactory theory of consciousness"?
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
The same way I don't need to understand aerodynamics to know that I have no reason to believe that turtles might be capable of flight. I've never seen a turtle do anything that sits in the neighbourhood of the notion of "flight" in the network of concepts in my head. This type of argument doesn't work against the putative consciousness of foetal brains, since we have good reason to believe that at least brains at a certain stage of development are in fact conscious. To argue that this means we can only have an ethical problem with running dubious experiments on brains at that stage of development is rather like arguing that since you've only ever seen white swans fly, the supposition that black swans might fly too is not justified as such.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
You can't talk about ethical boundaries being pushed unless you place that ethical boundary somewhere first. Otherwise we're back to hand-waving: Can I say that because no one "can yet offer any satisfactory theory of consciousness', chewing on a salad is ethically problematic?
Basically, you can't be both worried and unhappy, and completely unspecific :-/
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
Is there any particular reason to believe that a salads might be capable of consciousness? No.
Is there any particular reason to believe that brains might be capable of consciousness? Yes - namely the fact that most brains insist on describing themselves as such. Does this imply brains are conscious if and only if they insist on describing themselves as such? No. No more than than a bird is only capable of flight when it's actually literally soaring in the air.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
If you already have some idea of what the word "consciousness" means, you want to be reassured that the brain tissue in question is not conscious according to your idea.
I doubt you will let "them" define consciousness any way they wish. For example, I can say "X suffers iff X can communicate to me that it wants the current condition to stop". Will you be happy with that? Probably not.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
More importantly, I want there to be a serious recognition of the ethical boundaries that are being pushed against by this kind of research due to the fact that neither I nor anyone else can yet offer any satisfactory theory of consciousness. That's the whole motivation behind my original comment, rather than the desire to advance a philosophical dogma, which seems to be what you want to impute to me.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
We are, of course, at liberty. However it seems to me you don't want them to satisfy their own definition -- that would be too easy -- you want them to satisfy your definition, but for that you should have an idea of what you want clarified and what criteria do you expect to be met. Demanding that they clarify something to the satisfaction of your "visceral level" is still hand-waving.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
you don't want them to satisfy their own definition -- that would be too easy -- you want them to satisfy your definition
How could I say either way when they don't offer any definition to begin with? My original complaint was precisely that consciousness is not sufficiently well understood to allow anyone to be cavalier about these things in either direction.
Demanding that they clarify something to the satisfaction of your "visceral level" is still hand-waving.
The only one who has demanded that a concept be defined to his satisfaction here is you, when you explicitly requested a definition of suffering in terms of literal significance.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
If you don't understand what suffering is at a visceral level then no experimental contrivance will clarify the notion for you.
That's pure hand-waving.
Look: "I think this rock here is suffering. I can't prove it, but if you don't feel it at a visceral level then no experimental contrivance will clarify it for you"
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
I'm not claiming that rocks or artificially grown foetal brains are suffering. The people involved in this research claim they aren't - if the meaning of that claim is unclear the onus is on them to clarify it. Until such a time we are all at liberty to filter that claim through our own intuitively constructed concepts.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
That doesn't help me -- essentially, you just replaced the word "conscious" with the word "suffering" and that does not clarify much.
Let's try it this way. Here is a black box with something inside it. It does not communicate in any way that's meaningful to you. How can you decide whether it's conscious or capable of suffering? What would you need to measure or observe? What are your criteria?
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
Tabooing doesn't work here, you can only taboo your terms so far before you've completely severed yourself from the semantics of your language. If you don't understand what suffering is at a visceral level then no experimental contrivance will clarify the notion for you.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
I am not sure what does "conscious" mean in this context.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
In the context of ethics most likely something like the capacity for suffering, or for any kind subjective experience.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
Not just because it is not being stimulated, but rather because it has never been stimulated. That's a rather large difference.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
I fail to see how you could derive that it's unconscious either way.
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[Link] First almost fully-formed human [foetus] brain grown in lab, researchers claim
How the hell can he claim a brain is not conscious just because it's not being stimulated, when consciousness is so very badly understood to begin with?
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You don't need to know the underlying mechanics, but you do need to know what flight is.
You're saying we don't even know what consciousness is.
No one is arguing that. I am saying that if you claim to have a problem, you have to be more specific about what your problem is and what might convince you that it is not a problem.
"Prove to me something I don't know what" is not a useful attitude.
Not in the least. I know what consciousness is because I am a consciousness. The need for a theory of consciousness is necessary to tie the concept to the material world, so that you can make statements like "a rock cannot be conscious, in principle".
What might convince me is a satisfactory theory of consciousness. Do I have to provide a full specification of what would be "satisfactory" just to recognize an ethical problem? If so there is hardly anything about which I could raise an ethical concern, since I'd perpetually be working on epistemic aesthetics until all necessary puzzles are solved. This is just in fact not how anyone operates. We proceed with vague concepts, heuristic criteria for satisfactoriness, incomplete theories, etc. To say that this should be disallowed unless you can unfold your theory's logical substructure in a kind of Principia Ethica is waaay more useless than interpreting ideas through partial theories.