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Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I still do not believe in soul, but more that consciousness is an inherent property of matter.

that's just belief though-- i don't even know what you mean by "soul".

as for testing-- we don't even have a way to detect "consciousness". all we have is the other side of the turing tests-- "we have it" and if the machine cannot be differentiated then it's "intelligent". but how do you define it? and worse, how do you measure it? magnetism? electricity? something else we don't even know about?

give cognitive neuroscience a couple of centuries and maybe we can start to investigate the "consciousness" of plants. meanwhile, it's just hocus pocus.