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> Consciousness is everything a person experiences — what they taste, hear, feel and more. It is what gives meaning and value to our lives, Chalmers says. > De

> Consciousness is everything a person experiences — what they taste, hear, feel and more. It is what gives meaning and value to our lives, Chalmers says. > Despite a vast effort — and a 25-year bet — researchers still don’t understand how our brains produce it, however. “It started off as a very big philosophical mystery,” Chalmers adds. “But over the years, it’s gradually been transmuting into, if not a ‘scientific’ mystery, at least one that we can get a partial grip on scientifically.” I'm sure these two scientists have interesting things to say that I never thought about. But I stopped reading the article at this point, because that's where I expected a precise definition of consciousness. That first sentence isn't one as far as I am concerned. Philosophy without strict definitions and a common language tends to be useless. And I love philosophy and consider it the root of all science.

a_cardboard_box 3y ago
Consciousness is something some beings experience. We have direct knowledge that it exists because we experience it. We can assign a word to this experience, but we can't define it objectively such that a non-conscious being would understand it. That doesn't mean it's useless to talk about this real experience we have. It just means we can never be entirely sure we're talking about the same thing.
- moritzwarhier 3y ago
  > We can assign a word to this experience, but we can't define it objectively such that a non-conscious being would understand it. That doesn't mean it's useless to talk about this real experience we have. That's undeniably true and I feel somewhat sorry having used the term "useless" in my comment, then again I don't. The best teacher I had in school days was a philosophy Ph.d. who pivoted to middle and high school teaching for a while (then quit it after a couple of years). His favorite subjects included Thomas Aquin and Plato. When I say "precise definitions", I don't claim to understand the argument wholesale, nor did I want to dismiss talking about "subjective" experience. I have deep respect for philosophy as the non-specialized root of all science, as I said. This includes thinking about what my scare-quoted qualifier "subjective" means. My comment was meant to be a half-assed critique justifying why I didn't RTFA, after having it half-read. Importantly (even if half-assed), a critique of the article, not its subject matter. It just felt like a logical omission and therefore an impleasant reading flow for a pop sci article. If there had been an introductory sentence to that paragraph to qualify the definition, I wouldn't have commented.
BestGuess 3y ago
Near I can tell all I can find is wikipedia paraphrasing him paraphrasing someone else. "the feeling of what it is like to be something" sounds like to me a lot of words to just say "self awareness". Now I'm ignorant of all of this fair warning, but that seems pretty dang well explained isn't it? went and looked for brain science and awareness things, but it seems like there's lots of explanations for lots of parts of it. Same way we got lots of explanations for lots of stuff in science near as I know, so how the hell does that mean "neuroscience loses"? Like if we don't got a perfect explanation of everything science don't count? Anyhow I went and read the article but it didn't even explain what isn't explained like you said where there just wasn't a meaning that was laid out. Got the feelin "it isn't perfect so I win" which is a really cheap trick and a really dumb bet. But I don't really know this stuff so all I can say is "to someone who doesn't know this stuff this article didn't help a dang bit". Maybe someone can explain the dang thing to me better
goatlover 3y ago
You can look the definition of qualia or phenomenal. There is a ton of philosophical discussion. But basically, it means the experiences of color, sound, etc. that humans have, and whatever additional kinds of sensations animals with different sensory organs (like sonar in bats) have. Which doesn't preclude other sorts of physical systems from being conscious, just depending on what you think results in conscious experiences.
- moritzwarhier 3y ago
  I agree with your definition, but also wonder, isn't it kind of self-referential? I almost get an "Ignotum per ignotius" (or "Ignotum per æque ignotum") [1] feel reading this definition. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignotum_per_ignotius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignotum_per_ignotius

a_cardboard_box 3y ago

Consciousness is something some beings experience. We have direct knowledge that it exists because we experience it. We can assign a word to this experience, but we can't define it objectively such that a non-conscious being would understand it. That doesn't mean it's useless to talk about this real experience we have. It just means we can never be entirely sure we're talking about the same thing.

moritzwarhier 3y ago
> We can assign a word to this experience, but we can't define it objectively such that a non-conscious being would understand it. That doesn't mean it's useless to talk about this real experience we have. That's undeniably true and I feel somewhat sorry having used the term "useless" in my comment, then again I don't. The best teacher I had in school days was a philosophy Ph.d. who pivoted to middle and high school teaching for a while (then quit it after a couple of years). His favorite subjects included Thomas Aquin and Plato. When I say "precise definitions", I don't claim to understand the argument wholesale, nor did I want to dismiss talking about "subjective" experience. I have deep respect for philosophy as the non-specialized root of all science, as I said. This includes thinking about what my scare-quoted qualifier "subjective" means. My comment was meant to be a half-assed critique justifying why I didn't RTFA, after having it half-read. Importantly (even if half-assed), a critique of the article, not its subject matter. It just felt like a logical omission and therefore an impleasant reading flow for a pop sci article. If there had been an introductory sentence to that paragraph to qualify the definition, I wouldn't have commented.

BestGuess 3y ago

Near I can tell all I can find is wikipedia paraphrasing him paraphrasing someone else. "the feeling of what it is like to be something" sounds like to me a lot of words to just say "self awareness". Now I'm ignorant of all of this fair warning, but that seems pretty dang well explained isn't it? went and looked for brain science and awareness things, but it seems like there's lots of explanations for lots of parts of it. Same way we got lots of explanations for lots of stuff in science near as I know, so how the hell does that mean "neuroscience loses"? Like if we don't got a perfect explanation of everything science don't count? Anyhow I went and read the article but it didn't even explain what isn't explained like you said where there just wasn't a meaning that was laid out. Got the feelin "it isn't perfect so I win" which is a really cheap trick and a really dumb bet. But I don't really know this stuff so all I can say is "to someone who doesn't know this stuff this article didn't help a dang bit". Maybe someone can explain the dang thing to me better

goatlover 3y ago

You can look the definition of qualia or phenomenal. There is a ton of philosophical discussion. But basically, it means the experiences of color, sound, etc. that humans have, and whatever additional kinds of sensations animals with different sensory organs (like sonar in bats) have. Which doesn't preclude other sorts of physical systems from being conscious, just depending on what you think results in conscious experiences.

moritzwarhier 3y ago
I agree with your definition, but also wonder, isn't it kind of self-referential? I almost get an "Ignotum per ignotius" (or "Ignotum per æque ignotum") [1] feel reading this definition. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignotum_per_ignotius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignotum_per_ignotius