Genady

Yes, it is. I think that the biggest obstacle in this area is that we cannot experiment on humans.

This dissimilarity makes a big difference. When the phenomena are repeatedly observable, research plans can be set, tools and methods can be designed, and the new observations can be executed. Otherwise, until there are defined next steps, calls for farther investigations are pointless. I've asked this question before and all I got was to look for IR sources in the Kuiper Belt.

I don't insist that it is discrete. In case it is a continuum, the question can be stated as, how does the child development progress from not conscious to conscious? Also, when does the child become as conscious as an adult?

I disagree. There are several suggestions. We don't have yet tools or data to test them. Again, I think this is incorrect. Several suggestions exist for both. Data keep being accumulated. In all three cases, energies, times, and distances involved are such that we cannot make direct experiments. Thus, the slow process of collecting observational data is our only way to make progress in these domains. But the phenomena are there, the observations are repeatable, and the research goes on.

This brings up another interesting question. When does a developing child become conscious? PS. I realize that this question is completely OT.

Yes, we'll see. My main lesson from this discussion is that the question is not one of science, but rather one of social acceptance.

And it will be up to experts to decide when it is tested enough to make the decision?

How does it help experts to decide if a machine is conscious or not? It is the "other organism".

You did not say it, but the statement, might make an impression that causality sets a restriction on time travel, but not on space travel. I want to point out that space travel is also restricted by causality. If you are on Earth and your grandfather is on Moon, and you travel there in half a second and kill him, the causality is violated.

In both cases, a machine and the bees, we use ourselves as a reference. In both cases, we don't know the subjective experience of the object, a machine or the bees. While using ourselves as reference, the expert people cannot decide if bees are conscious or not.

Well, expert people cannot agree if bees are or are not conscious, for example.

I see a problem with 2c. If we find a difference, then it failed the test, and we know that it is not conscious. But as long as we don't find a difference, we don't know if there is a difference or there is not. How do we decide that it passed the test?

The difference is that in the case of a telescope there is only one history and no time loop is possible.

But if you can travel in space so that you reach Moon in 0.5 s, causality is violated.

I have many questions about this statement. Here are some: 1. Does it apply only to "a machine"? If so, what is "a machine"? If not, what else it is applicable to? 2. Is being conscious necessary, sufficient, or both for us being unable to discern the difference functionally? IOW: 2a. If we can't discern the difference functionally, then it is conscious? = If it is not conscious, then we can discern the difference functionally? 2b. If it is conscious, then we can't discern the difference functionally? = If we can discern the difference functionally, then it is not conscious? 2c. Both 2a and 2b? 3. What is "the difference functionally"?

Yes, we don't know how we would know if a machine were conscious. We also don't know how we would know if a machine were intelligent. Is there a connection between these two? Does intelligence require consciousness? Does consciousness require intelligence?

There is a terrorist group on the East Coast preparing a large-scale terrorist attack. When the asteroid hits, they die, among the other millions. Then the call is used and in 2024 they learn about the asteroid and the phone call. They evacuate and change their target so that in 2025, one minute before the call is made, the calling equipment is blown up. The call does not occur. People in 2024 don't know about the coming asteroid hit and don't evacuate. The millions, including the terrorists die. The terrorist attack does not occur. The call is made. People evacuate. Terrorists blow up the calling equipment ...

Supernova Explosions (Astronomy and Astrophysics Library): Branch, David, Wheeler, J. Craig: 9783662550526: Amazon.com: Books

Give me a bit more detailed scenario and I'll try.

But it could.

It is a very narrow view.

I did not say anything about a paradox being true. I don't even know what it means.

According to a major school of thought in psychology and philosophy, concepts exist separately from their various sensory, motor, and affective representations. Using a triangle example, Kemmerer in Concepts in the Brain (pp. 253-254, Oxford University Press) says,

They would rather travel back each to their own past, wouldn't they? So, they may even arrive there not as one object at all.

Breaking laws of electrodynamics and energy conservation would be quite a big deal. It would lead to breaking of quantum electrodynamics, quantum field theory, gauge theory, standard model, thermodynamics, etc.