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>>20651
So you are referring to the feeling of being conscious. A private event. The problem with private events is that they can be researched only through the consequences they produce – the outcomes. The Chinese room argument shows that when the outcomes are identical no matter what is inside of the room (a computer or a person), then there is no way to tell what process generates those outcomes. It's an instance of the identity of indiscernibles principle. And while you could guess that an other human does perceive it's own consciousness based on the shared experience, you couldn't use the same approach to say, an alien. So the approach of inferring possession of soul from private events excludes a whole class of beings that could possibly have a soul, but you couldn't prove that about them. How would you know if an alien does feel all the things it says it does or just mimics human behaviour to appear more trustworthy? You can never know that for sure, which makes the "beholding" approach invalid for any serious inquiry.