3 ms·
The continued experience that you exist. You literally have never known anything else, only the representations which consciousness allows. The stuff itself i
by vokep 8y ago
The continued experience that you exist. You literally have never known anything else, only the representations which consciousness allows.
The stuff itself is hopelessly metaphysical, the only good way I know to define is the above: since you have are consciousness, its easy enough to just say 'look around'. Its difficult to think of any material definition when there's not much of an understanding of how it relates to anything material. Obviously the images you see are dictated by physical rods and cones in the eyes, but what the hell are colors?
- int_19h 8y ago> The continued experience that you exist. You literally have never known anything else, only the representations which consciousness allows. Right, but that's what makes it so meaningless. We generally define things by specifying how they're different from other things. But you can't do it with consciousness, because you can't really know what the absence of consciousness is like. And if you can't do that, the definition of consciousness becomes null - and nothing meaningful can be derived from it. With colors, at least, you can define different ones in terms of different sensations - red is not-green etc. And because they're derived from observation of phenomena, you can compare notes with other people to make sure that what you consider red is also what they consider red etc - it's not a perfect system, but it's "good enough". I don't think we have anything even remotely resembling such a "good enough" definition of consciousness, though.