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Consciousness is self evident in the most literal sense. For something to be evident, it must be observed, which means it will be experienced, but consciousness
by aninhumer 10y ago
Consciousness is self evident in the most literal sense. For something to be evident, it must be observed, which means it will be experienced, but consciousness is experience itself. It is self-evident because it is the thing which allows things to be evident.
Heliocentrism was never "self-evident" it was merely obvious, and wrong. (And incidentally, it was actually far more scientific than Galileo until years after his death.)
- joe_the_user 10y agoI think you are conflating conscious as some means to gain experience with consciousness-the-model-of-experience.
- aninhumer 10y agoI'm not sure exactly what distinction you're making, but I realised after posting that I made a leap from observation to experience. Observation doesn't require experience, in the sense that a p-zombie could take in sensory information, and use them to make scientific inferences, without ever experiencing those observations. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the only way to observe consciousness is to experience it directly, and doing so proves it exists (at least to ourselves). And sure, from the perspective of some kind of science automaton in the material world, consciousness is as ridiculous as invisible unicorns, but we still experience it.