> 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 useles

> 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.