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And yet you can be unconscious. For sure, consciousness is used to put humans over other creatures [1]. But that doesn't mean that consciousness doesn't exist.

by mvn9 6y ago

And yet you can be unconscious. For sure, consciousness is used to put humans over other creatures [1]. But that doesn't mean that consciousness doesn't exist. Why don't you look at it the other way round and assume consciousness wherever possible? Vegans have compassion with animals because they see consciousness. Are they wrong? Or don't they go far enough and plants and even stones have consciousness? But then, why don't we feel different when we cut our hair and lose some matter, or exchange all atoms of our body during our life? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24165923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24165923

arnoooooo 6y ago
> you can be uncounscious Uncounsciousness is often taken to mean the absence of consciousness, but it could just as well be the absence of objects in consciousness. After all, by definition, no one has ever had first-hand experience of their consciousness disappearing, so we don't even know that consciousness can disappear. Likewise for consciousness appearing.
vladTheInhaler 6y ago
We don't "feel different" because there is no evolutionarily useful purpose to feeling bad about cutting off a hair. And that's probably why most people don't feel so bad about having an animal killed in order for us to eat. It seems likely to me that our ability to have compassion for animals is in some sense a "misfire" of a system that was "intended" to help us cooperate with other humans. We're stretching a system way beyond its original purpose. My point is just that the way we feel about a certain action says almost nothing about the nature of reality or morality, but rather about us as a species. Whether or not stones have a consciousness wouldn't affect how bad we feel about crushing them into dust. For what it's worth, I tend to lean toward the "not far enough" camp. I see no good reason to assume that there is anything special about any particular arrangement of matter that causes there to be something that it is like to be that matter. I think it is more accurate to consciousness, than to say that we are conscious. There are still interesting questions to answer about consciousness. One of them being "why does the brain spend so much effort simulating an internally consistent model of what it's "like" to be me?" - and we know that it is, because it flaps my jaws and wiggles my fingers on the keyboard in patterns that are consistent with that It seems like a lot of resources to spend on something that isn't incredibly useful somehow. But those are questions about the mechanics of the brain, not about some mystic property or sensory qualia

by mvn9 6y ago

arnoooooo 6y ago

> you can be uncounscious Uncounsciousness is often taken to mean the absence of consciousness, but it could just as well be the absence of objects in consciousness. After all, by definition, no one has ever had first-hand experience of their consciousness disappearing, so we don't even know that consciousness can disappear. Likewise for consciousness appearing.

vladTheInhaler 6y ago

We don't "feel different" because there is no evolutionarily useful purpose to feeling bad about cutting off a hair. And that's probably why most people don't feel so bad about having an animal killed in order for us to eat. It seems likely to me that our ability to have compassion for animals is in some sense a "misfire" of a system that was "intended" to help us cooperate with other humans. We're stretching a system way beyond its original purpose. My point is just that the way we feel about a certain action says almost nothing about the nature of reality or morality, but rather about us as a species. Whether or not stones have a consciousness wouldn't affect how bad we feel about crushing them into dust. For what it's worth, I tend to lean toward the "not far enough" camp. I see no good reason to assume that there is anything special about any particular arrangement of matter that causes there to be something that it is like to be that matter. I think it is more accurate to consciousness, than to say that we are conscious. There are still interesting questions to answer about consciousness. One of them being "why does the brain spend so much effort simulating an internally consistent model of what it's "like" to be me?" - and we know that it is, because it flaps my jaws and wiggles my fingers on the keyboard in patterns that are consistent with that It seems like a lot of resources to spend on something that isn't incredibly useful somehow. But those are questions about the mechanics of the brain, not about some mystic property or sensory qualia