What is consciousness and will it ever be transferrable? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

It would be wonderful to be able to respond to these question in 300 words. Then neuroscience would be much closer to physics, but it can't, and in fact I think many of my colleagues would respond this question quite differently.

My view is that we do not know yet what consciousness is. It is not the first time science has worked (effectively) on a subject ignoring its essence completely. Lavoisier, the great French scientist, developed a quite complete and remarkable science of "heat" while being completely confused about what it was. He thought heat was the consequence of “caloric”, an intangible substance. Caloric could move around through matter transporting heat. I think we are in a similar position today with respect to the science of consciousness. We have learned a great deal, we can turn it off at will, and in some cases how to turn it back on, how to change its quality and contents and how brain patterns establish conditions and signatures of consciousness. But, I think, like Lavoisier in his time, we remain confused about what it actually is.

About the second part of the question, I also believe two great scientists of consciousness like Stanislas Dehaene and Anil Seth would disagree about whether we can generate conscious machines. I think Stan believes that if we do understand the computational principles of consciousness and emulate them (even in very different architectures), then we should be able to produce conscious machines. If this is possible and we can pursue the project of deciphering mental states with greater precision, the idea of transferring a consciousness to a different support is conceivable. I think Anil Seth would claim instead that consciousness is intrinsically related to a more homeostatic reading of body signals, and hence, consciousness could not be transferred to a device unless it shares all of its biological structure. Pushing this idea even further, the philosopher of the mind Kathinka Evers argues that thoughts are perceived from a (self) perspective and that while thoughts – as icons - may be transferred to another device, the token of the thought, which includes its perspective, cannot. She has a modern version of Leibnitz principle which argues that if two entities would share the same perspective and hence the same conscious experience, then they would fuse and become one and the same.

The short answer then, I think, is that we (scientists) do not know. But decades ago we had a similar confusion about what was life, and centuries ago about what was heat, or the sky, or the universe... Consciousness remains - I think - a mystery for science, one that we may reveal some time soon.

This question originally appeared on Quora. More questions on Quora:

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