4 ms·

Because it's badly defined and so it's unanswerable because what it means changes depending on who you ask.

goatlover 5y ago
It's not badly defined. Consciousness is our subjective experience of color, sound, taste, smell, touch, feelings in perception, imagination, hallucination, illusion, dreams and inner dialog. It's something we're all familiar with. The modern philosophical term for this is qualia. Chalmers, Block, Nagel, etc. have discussed this at length. Even philosophers who disagree with them like Dennett and Keith Frankish do so by engaging with the definition above. It's unanswerable to date because there is no consensus on what the nature of subjectivity is. How are some brain states conscious? Is it a cognitive illusion? Is it weakly emergent? Is consciousness a property of everything or perhaps rich information streams? Is it functional or biological? Are we cognitively closed to the answer?
- gpderetta 5y ago
  the problem is "subjective experience". How do you define that? Otherwise that definition is at best incomplete. Being the subject of experience is not enough. A camera experience color, but almost everybody would agree it is not conscious.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Everyone who is conscious is 100% aware that they are conscious. That is the only definition you need. Of course we can't know if others are conscious, but that doesn't mean the definition isn't easy to make. The hard part is tying this definition to physical properties, not the definition itself.
- bryan0 5y ago
  > It's not badly defined. Consciousness is our subjective experience of color, sound, taste, smell, touch, feelings in perception, imagination, hallucination, illusion, dreams and inner dialog. It's something we're all familiar with. I don’t know this doesn’t seem like a great definition to me. It lists a dozen distinct properties, most very complicated in their own right, and then kind of collapses into “we all know what it is anyway”
  - goatlover 5y ago
    Do you prefer properties of perceivers or experiencers? The class of those properties is subjective or qualia.
    - bryan0 5y ago
      I prefer any definition that is clear and most everyone can agree on. A long incomplete list of properties is not ideal
      - Jensson 5y ago
        It is clear, consciousness is what allows you to experience things rather than being a mindless automaton. We can't detect this property nor can we explain it with the laws of physics we have today, but the definition of what it is is extremely clear. What you mean might be that you'd prefer a definition that you can use to measure objects around the world to detect consciousness? Well, as I said we don't have any laws or explanation for it so you wont get that. But you and everyone else knows that consciousness is a thing and you can prod at your consciousness yourself to see how it responds to stimuli etc, but that is as far as human knowledge go with respect to consciousness so far.
        bryan0 5y ago
        > consciousness is what allows you to experience things rather than being a mindless automaton. Well this is certainly a better definition IMO, however, what does a "mindless automaton" mean? If the automaton is intelligent then it's not mindless. > What you mean might be that you'd prefer a definition that you can use to measure objects around the world to detect consciousness? That's not what I mean. I actually think Turing created a decent method of detecting consciousness. What I mean is that someone on this thread said the problem with consciousness is that it is not well-defined, and I happen to agree in the sense that when people talking about consciousness they are often talking about different things. Just in this one thread 2 different definitions were proposed, and the article uses a 3rd: "the feeling of being inside your head"

It's not badly defined. Consciousness is our subjective experience of color, sound, taste, smell, touch, feelings in perception, imagination, hallucination, illusion, dreams and inner dialog. It's something we're all familiar with. The modern philosophical term for this is qualia. Chalmers, Block, Nagel, etc. have discussed this at length. Even philosophers who disagree with them like Dennett and Keith Frankish do so by engaging with the definition above. It's unanswerable to date because there is no consensus on what the nature of subjectivity is. How are some brain states conscious? Is it a cognitive illusion? Is it weakly emergent? Is consciousness a property of everything or perhaps rich information streams? Is it functional or biological? Are we cognitively closed to the answer?

gpderetta 5y ago
the problem is "subjective experience". How do you define that? Otherwise that definition is at best incomplete. Being the subject of experience is not enough. A camera experience color, but almost everybody would agree it is not conscious.
- Jensson 5y ago
  Everyone who is conscious is 100% aware that they are conscious. That is the only definition you need. Of course we can't know if others are conscious, but that doesn't mean the definition isn't easy to make. The hard part is tying this definition to physical properties, not the definition itself.
bryan0 5y ago
> It's not badly defined. Consciousness is our subjective experience of color, sound, taste, smell, touch, feelings in perception, imagination, hallucination, illusion, dreams and inner dialog. It's something we're all familiar with. I don’t know this doesn’t seem like a great definition to me. It lists a dozen distinct properties, most very complicated in their own right, and then kind of collapses into “we all know what it is anyway”
- goatlover 5y ago
  Do you prefer properties of perceivers or experiencers? The class of those properties is subjective or qualia.
  - bryan0 5y ago
    I prefer any definition that is clear and most everyone can agree on. A long incomplete list of properties is not ideal
    - Jensson 5y ago
      It is clear, consciousness is what allows you to experience things rather than being a mindless automaton. We can't detect this property nor can we explain it with the laws of physics we have today, but the definition of what it is is extremely clear. What you mean might be that you'd prefer a definition that you can use to measure objects around the world to detect consciousness? Well, as I said we don't have any laws or explanation for it so you wont get that. But you and everyone else knows that consciousness is a thing and you can prod at your consciousness yourself to see how it responds to stimuli etc, but that is as far as human knowledge go with respect to consciousness so far.
      - bryan0 5y ago
        > consciousness is what allows you to experience things rather than being a mindless automaton. Well this is certainly a better definition IMO, however, what does a "mindless automaton" mean? If the automaton is intelligent then it's not mindless. > What you mean might be that you'd prefer a definition that you can use to measure objects around the world to detect consciousness? That's not what I mean. I actually think Turing created a decent method of detecting consciousness. What I mean is that someone on this thread said the problem with consciousness is that it is not well-defined, and I happen to agree in the sense that when people talking about consciousness they are often talking about different things. Just in this one thread 2 different definitions were proposed, and the article uses a 3rd: "the feeling of being inside your head"