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Even medically, you're not evaluating anything about consciousness (i.e. subjective experience) directly. You're just measuring things that we think imply cons

Even medically, you're not evaluating anything about consciousness (i.e. subjective experience) directly. You're just measuring things that we think imply consciousness.

Retric 7y ago
This is where it get's tricky, some people take consciousness to imply sentience which requires subjective experience others are happy to with just awareness. A venus fly trap is aware of it's environment and has a useful response. In many peoples books that's consciousness others want to limit things to just say it's aware but lacks consciousness. IMO, that's the kind of divide that's prevents meaningful discussions.
- dwaltrip 7y ago
  I would say that "awareness" requires an entity to contain a detailed representation of the world around it that is updated over time as it interacts with the world. Of course, there is a spectrum here, depending on the complexity and dynamicness of this internal representation of the world. Perhaps it goes something like: absolutely zero awareness (e.g. a rock), to barely aware (a Venus fly trap), to highly aware (elephants, humans, etc). I'm sure the scale doesn't stop there, but we haven't had a chance to observe anything other than the highly aware animals here on Earth. You could break this down further, looking at things like episodic memory, the different senses of self, and so on. But humanity has only scratched the surface when it comes to understanding these things.
- andrepd 7y ago
  Then you just need to define what the terms mean. In the rest of the conversation, let "consciousness" mean "the subjective conscious experience (your qualitative experience of sight, sound, etc)", rather than "awareness", "medical wakefulness", or anything. Then you can talk about this concept instead of getting bogged down in definitions.
- Shorel 7y ago
  > IMO, that's the kind of divide that's prevents meaningful discussions. It doesn't prevent discussions for the sake of it. It's simply that we don't know. Any position you take in this matter is nothing more than unfounded speculation.
  - Retric 7y ago
    These are arbitrary definitions not knowable facts. People can agree that a standard red laser pointer is red, but exactly what frequency does light become or stop being red out to 7 decimal places? That’s not something everyone agrees on and arguing about it is not going to change people’s opinions.

Even medically, you're not evaluating anything about consciousness (i.e. subjective experience) directly. You're just measuring things that we think imply consciousness.

Retric 7y ago

This is where it get's tricky, some people take consciousness to imply sentience which requires subjective experience others are happy to with just awareness. A venus fly trap is aware of it's environment and has a useful response. In many peoples books that's consciousness others want to limit things to just say it's aware but lacks consciousness. IMO, that's the kind of divide that's prevents meaningful discussions.

dwaltrip 7y ago
I would say that "awareness" requires an entity to contain a detailed representation of the world around it that is updated over time as it interacts with the world. Of course, there is a spectrum here, depending on the complexity and dynamicness of this internal representation of the world. Perhaps it goes something like: absolutely zero awareness (e.g. a rock), to barely aware (a Venus fly trap), to highly aware (elephants, humans, etc). I'm sure the scale doesn't stop there, but we haven't had a chance to observe anything other than the highly aware animals here on Earth. You could break this down further, looking at things like episodic memory, the different senses of self, and so on. But humanity has only scratched the surface when it comes to understanding these things.
andrepd 7y ago
Then you just need to define what the terms mean. In the rest of the conversation, let "consciousness" mean "the subjective conscious experience (your qualitative experience of sight, sound, etc)", rather than "awareness", "medical wakefulness", or anything. Then you can talk about this concept instead of getting bogged down in definitions.
Shorel 7y ago
> IMO, that's the kind of divide that's prevents meaningful discussions. It doesn't prevent discussions for the sake of it. It's simply that we don't know. Any position you take in this matter is nothing more than unfounded speculation.
- Retric 7y ago
  These are arbitrary definitions not knowable facts. People can agree that a standard red laser pointer is red, but exactly what frequency does light become or stop being red out to 7 decimal places? That’s not something everyone agrees on and arguing about it is not going to change people’s opinions.