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Comment by dnautics | Hacker News Reader

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dnautics·

"sexual desire"

So an asexual human is not conscious.

"pain"

There are humans that have their pain receptors ablated due to genetic condition. Are they not conscious?

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The following lines say "any of", not "all of". Lack of one particular feeling does not imply lack of consciousness. Lack of all of them probably would.

That's not how I read the word any in that statement, it was used to narrow the condition.

if a human could not feel hunger, thirst, pain, sexual desire, fear, tiredness, or literally anything else, they'd be considered braindead. we already don't consider them conscious.

Let's say you artificially meet or restrict the biological basis of the needs.

E.g. put the subject on a drip so that none of the hunger senses are triggered. Automatically manage the body's water balance with sensors and a feeding tube. Restrict them so that they can't hurt themselves to feel pain. Modulate their sexual hormones to inhibit sexual desire. Etc., etc.

Do they stop being conscious?

They still have the capacity to, in this case the experiment is being set up so that a being that COULD pass the test on their own CAN NOT when hooked up to a bunch of equipment.

So someone with a medical condition that causes them to be a vegetable without being connected to a machine wouldn't be conscious?

E.g. Let's imagine we get some cybernetic approach that can work around an inoperable deep brain tumour in the brainstem.

Without the prosthesis the person is in a coma or dead. With it they are normal, but need to be connected to the prosthesis.

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