Hence my point about circuit bending. We're at the stage equivalent to that alien a) being able to electroshock the driver, and b) observe them getting out of car and functioning independently, therefore c) conclude that the driver is the thing controlling the car.
Not quite. What you prove by circuit bending is that you can alter behavior through physical means, no one's denying that. But the conclusion that because of that, then the physical means are also creating consciousness, that's not proven.
It's like assuming that the driver creates a spark in order to initiate combustion within the car, because the aliens haven't observed an instance of the car starting without the driver present.
necessity and sufficiency is insufficient (and not necessary) in biology. I've attended talks where the system was complex enough that something (a molecular factor) was sufficient, but not necessary! Pure logic isn't useful in biology because it's a feedback-controlled system with an enormous number of internal states.
Does it not illustrate that the person making the assertion either hasn't considered that their explanation is not necessarily exhaustive (in fact, as opposed to according to current theories within a popular, not entirely genuine/consistent in behavior at this point in time ideology), or would like you to believe that it is?
If there is a way to prove it is necessarily exhaustive, I would like to hear it.
Logic as applied to the real world is just beliefs too; using probability for the math is a way to account for uncertainty, instead of rounding everything up or down to impossible standards of "true" or "false".
> Logic as applied to the real world is just beliefs too
I disagree. For example: how can humans operating on scientific principles so consistently stack hundreds of "just" beliefs on top of each other to achieve things like landing things on the moon, as just one very old example?
I suspect there is more to it....I believe that all beliefs are not equal, and I'll go even further: some beliefs are true, and some beliefs are not true.
> using probability for the math is a way to account for uncertainty
That "account for" has a different meaning than "perfectly resolve" seems highly relevant.
> instead of rounding everything up or down to impossible standards of "true" or "false"
Of the two of us, who is rounding things up or down to an artificial truth?
However, if you're an alien and you don't know the exact workings, you might conclude that alcohol affects cars.