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Does the idea of consciousness have any explanatory power? Does it pick out something substantively different than unconscious processes? If we were to replace

Does the idea of consciousness have any explanatory power? Does it pick out something substantively different than unconscious processes? If we were to replace all talk about consciousness with talk about molecules swirling about, would we lose something? I think the answer to these questions is yes. It seems that consciousness is a necessary feature of a complete explanation of the world in the same way trees and tables are. That is, even if these things can be reduced to more fundamental things, talk of tress and tables, and consciousness is still important.

AstralStorm 8y ago
You could probably use few more specific words to a greater effect. Such as self-model, world model, memory, information processing, directed action, responsiveness. Consciousness is a bit too underdefined a word. It is probably not as much of a whole as a tree or human as an organism is - it is not even persistent nor stable - and leaves no persistent traces in the world. You don't get a consciousness carcass left behind or a "monad" as some current theorists postulated. At least we haven't found any.
- hackinthebochs 8y ago
  But consciousness picks out something different from self-model, world model, information processing, etc. That is to say, none of these things sufficiently describes the processes we refer to when we talk about consciousness. A replacement concept would need to capture everything real about the term. We can replace water with H2O in any context and it makes sense. But there are contexts where we can meaningfully speak of consciousness where self-model (apparently) doesn't completely fit, e.g. "the pain of my stubbed toe overwhelmed my conscious experience".
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    Replace by "overrode my decision capability" (meaning you cannot act beyond reflex) or "overran my symbolic capability" (it was so big you cannot describe it) or perhaps overrode your other senses (couldn't sense anything else physically) or perhaps "stopped your self model from updating" (blocked integration of other perceptions). Better? Definitely less poetic but perhaps more accurate.

AstralStorm 8y ago

You could probably use few more specific words to a greater effect. Such as self-model, world model, memory, information processing, directed action, responsiveness. Consciousness is a bit too underdefined a word. It is probably not as much of a whole as a tree or human as an organism is - it is not even persistent nor stable - and leaves no persistent traces in the world. You don't get a consciousness carcass left behind or a "monad" as some current theorists postulated. At least we haven't found any.

hackinthebochs 8y ago
But consciousness picks out something different from self-model, world model, information processing, etc. That is to say, none of these things sufficiently describes the processes we refer to when we talk about consciousness. A replacement concept would need to capture everything real about the term. We can replace water with H2O in any context and it makes sense. But there are contexts where we can meaningfully speak of consciousness where self-model (apparently) doesn't completely fit, e.g. "the pain of my stubbed toe overwhelmed my conscious experience".
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Replace by "overrode my decision capability" (meaning you cannot act beyond reflex) or "overran my symbolic capability" (it was so big you cannot describe it) or perhaps overrode your other senses (couldn't sense anything else physically) or perhaps "stopped your self model from updating" (blocked integration of other perceptions). Better? Definitely less poetic but perhaps more accurate.