10 ms·
No one can define consciousness... so what is it we are taking about?
by philip142au 7y ago
No one can define consciousness... so what is it we are taking about?
- codeulike 7y agoIts quite hard to define 'chair' too, if you want to define it absolutely precisely. But we can still talk about chairs.
- subroutine 7y agoIt's actually not that hard if you have a dictionary... consciousness: the state of being conscious chair: a person who presides over a meeting or committee
- joycian 7y agoI love how this immediately stumbles upon difficulties: this is a different 'chair' than I was thinking of and the first definition just invokes a recursion into the definition of 'conscious'. I'm not sure whether that was the purpose of the comment, but it brilliantly succeeded.
- throwaway413 7y agoDidn’t see that one coming!
- subroutine 7y agoIndeed, humor is largely based on the subversion of expectations.
- philip142au 7y agoThis is not true, I can make a clear definition of a chair which allows someone to recognize it, for the concept of conscience I cannot
- codeulike 7y agoGo on then, give me a definition for chair, and I'll show you how it's not an accurate definition.
- buboard 7y agoa physical object manufactured to be sat on by humans. That said, i don't think "chair" is scientifically defined, because nobody does science of chairs. Consciousness on the other hand appears to be the subject of both scientific and philosophical investigation, therefore a common definition is desirable. What usually happens is the discussion derails around which definition to use.
- taneq 7y agoOr worse, spirals into endless “yes it is” “no it isn’t” without ever discussing what ‘it’ is.
- codeulike 7y agoSo is this a chair? https://imgur.com/a/6ykAG5m https://imgur.com/a/6ykAG5m Anyway yes I am familiar with the difficulty in defining consciousness, but you seemed to be making the point that agreeing the definition should be done before any other discussion, whereas clearly some fruitful discussion is often possible even though the definition is fluid. Indeed the article in the OP is essentially trying to work out one aspect of the definition. I gather he has a book where he puts forward a definition of sorts.
- buboard 7y ago> some fruitful discussion is often possible even though the definition is fluid I 've seen too many discussions using those "fluid" definitions to be running away from them. Fluidity is usually employed as a smokescreen tactic to derail any productive argumentation by constantly shifting the goalposts
- 7y ago
- subroutine 7y agoWe're talking about a phenomena that involves an abrupt change in the state-of-being among a subset of unconscious entities shortly after their neighbor's alarm clock goes off at 5am; in others this state emerges much slower, often requiring several caffeinated beverages.
- Yajirobe 7y agoConsciousness - awareness of subjective experience
- vekker 7y agoExactly, it's this simple. I also like another definition proposed here by another commenter: "the ability to experience positive and negative mental states". I don't understand the confusion about the definition of consciousness. It's actually the one thing that is most obvious, because it's right there all the time. This is like trying to define the experience of seeing "blue" or any other qualia. It's impossible because it's subjective, but we can all agree that we each have an experience of seeing blue.
- buboard 7y agoThat's because "define" is undefined. For most of science (including neuroscience) consciousness would have to be defined in quantifiable, preferably testable terms. Most people (including philosophers) use qualitative or subjective definitions of it.
- carapace 7y ago"consciousness" is a synonym for "now"