We don't have a "consciousness meter" that'll tell us exactly how conscious something is. I think we might get there eventually.
Edward BoydenI worry that we don't have a very good definition of consciousness yet which makes it hard to tackle.
Edward BoydenI spend a lot of time going over old conversation summaries. A lot of the old ones are about ideas that ended in failure, the project didn't work. But hey, you know what? That was five years ago, and now computers are faster, or some new information has come along, the world is different. So we're able to reboot the project.
Edward BoydenIf you give somebody a lot of questions to answer and then they walk by a bowl of candy, they are more likely to grab the candy because they're tired out from answering questions and can't resist.
Edward BoydenI think the definition will change as we learn more, but my working definition of solving the brain is: one, we can model, maybe in a computer, the processes that generate things like thoughts and feelings, and two, we can understand how to cure brain disorders, like Alzheimer's and epilepsy. Those are my two driving goals. One is more human-condition oriented, and one more clinical.
Edward Boyden