Hi dwaltrip :) > It's like asking for mass without of gravity. The consciousness _is_ the understanding of each instantaneous moment. Of course, if someone we

Hi dwaltrip :) > It's like asking for mass without of gravity. The consciousness _is_ the understanding of each instantaneous moment. Of course, if someone were to somehow spend time conscious without association, they wouldn't be able to convince anyone they did so. Maybe it's impossible, maybe it's possible, but it's not very amenable to debate. So I'm trying to stick to more empirically testable claims. In particular, here I'm hypothesizing that the reason we believe consciousness is equivalent to its various functions is that we don't have enough precision of awareness to distinguish them. The experiment is simple (though not easy): become increasingly aware of the subtle processes, and plot your belief over time. My own result (and that of many who have done the experiment) is that I've clarified two aspects of my experience ("the sheer fact of experience" and "the particular forms it takes") in such a way that I no longer identify them. YMMV, but I think it's a wonderful exercise! Relatedly, I'm curious what you think of the idea that you can only know that you are conscious, whereas it is impossible (even in principle) to know whether another being is. Thanks as always for the chat.