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That seems more like a definition for intelligence or learning. My favourite definition for consciousness is the following: If it is something to be like a pa

That seems more like a definition for intelligence or learning. My favourite definition for consciousness is the following: If it is something to be like a particular thing, then that thing is conscious. If it is something to be like a bat, then a bat is conscious. If it isn’t something to be like a bat - the “lights are off” so to speak - then it’s not conscious. Edit: clarity

iainmerrick 9y ago
From Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?", right? At least as you've stated it, that's a circular definition.
- PinkMilkshake 9y ago
  It was from a conversation between two neuroscientists. They were talking about Nagel earlier in the discussion. I don’t know if Nagel came up with that definition though. Could you explain how the way I stated it is circular?
  - iainmerrick 9y ago
    If it isn’t something to be like a bat - the “lights are off” so to speak - then it’s not conscious. I guess I'm focusing more on the "lights are off" part, although that's just an aside. "Conscious" and "lights are on" seem like alternate ways of saying exactly the same thing. Nagel's "is it like something to be" terminology has always struck me as wilfully contorted and confusing, but amounting to the same thing again -- you're conscious if you're conscious. It doesn't help us explain consciousness and it doesn't even help figure out what things are conscious and which aren't. Is a plant conscious, or a rock? Writers can certainly imagine what it might be like to be those things.
red75prime 9y ago
You probably couldn't use this definition even if you had a magical device which transforms you into a bat and then back again. After you are yourself again you'll need to interpret the acquired memories. You remember echolocview of the room (bats have memory, it's testable), hunger, disorientation and some other sensations. Does it mean that bat is conscious? What will you remember differently if bat wasn't conscious? You'll remember nothing? But memories are there and you should have access to them. The lack of self-awareness? But you don't know how you would remember the presence of self-awareness in a bat.
- msarchet 9y ago
  I think you could still use the definition. Because your still conscious, your just something that is aware of its ability to change shape and maintain its awareness through that change. Nothing is really static in life. So nothing ever really is always just a thing, it was one thing, now it's a slightly different thing.
- PinkMilkshake 9y ago
  But the definition isn’t if it is like something for a human to be a bat. Human experience doesn’t really come into it. It is like something to be a human. But the conscious experience of a bat (if it exists) may be completely alien to us in every way. That’s not relevant to what it is to be like a bat. The only important thing is if it is like something to be a bat.
  - red75prime 9y ago
    What's good in a definition you have no conceivable way of applying? How would you go about testing whether a bat is conscious according to this definition? It is based on our illusion of understanding what it is like to be a human, but upon closer inspection it bears no real content.

iainmerrick 9y ago

From Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?", right? At least as you've stated it, that's a circular definition.

PinkMilkshake 9y ago
It was from a conversation between two neuroscientists. They were talking about Nagel earlier in the discussion. I don’t know if Nagel came up with that definition though. Could you explain how the way I stated it is circular?
- iainmerrick 9y ago
  If it isn’t something to be like a bat - the “lights are off” so to speak - then it’s not conscious. I guess I'm focusing more on the "lights are off" part, although that's just an aside. "Conscious" and "lights are on" seem like alternate ways of saying exactly the same thing. Nagel's "is it like something to be" terminology has always struck me as wilfully contorted and confusing, but amounting to the same thing again -- you're conscious if you're conscious. It doesn't help us explain consciousness and it doesn't even help figure out what things are conscious and which aren't. Is a plant conscious, or a rock? Writers can certainly imagine what it might be like to be those things.

red75prime 9y ago

You probably couldn't use this definition even if you had a magical device which transforms you into a bat and then back again. After you are yourself again you'll need to interpret the acquired memories. You remember echolocview of the room (bats have memory, it's testable), hunger, disorientation and some other sensations. Does it mean that bat is conscious? What will you remember differently if bat wasn't conscious? You'll remember nothing? But memories are there and you should have access to them. The lack of self-awareness? But you don't know how you would remember the presence of self-awareness in a bat.

msarchet 9y ago
I think you could still use the definition. Because your still conscious, your just something that is aware of its ability to change shape and maintain its awareness through that change. Nothing is really static in life. So nothing ever really is always just a thing, it was one thing, now it's a slightly different thing.
PinkMilkshake 9y ago
But the definition isn’t if it is like something for a human to be a bat. Human experience doesn’t really come into it. It is like something to be a human. But the conscious experience of a bat (if it exists) may be completely alien to us in every way. That’s not relevant to what it is to be like a bat. The only important thing is if it is like something to be a bat.
- red75prime 9y ago
  What's good in a definition you have no conceivable way of applying? How would you go about testing whether a bat is conscious according to this definition? It is based on our illusion of understanding what it is like to be a human, but upon closer inspection it bears no real content.