First of all, thank you for the long and thoughtful response. My comment was mainly focused on the tie between memory and consciousness, which I think is genera

First of all, thank you for the long and thoughtful response. My comment was mainly focused on the tie between memory and consciousness, which I think is generally over-stated. People who get "blackout drunk" at a party are still conscious during the party. > According to many traditions that have a long experience in consciousness, it requires a practical approach and cannot be approached intellectually. Many traditions had a long experience in looking up at the sun and moon and came to the shared understanding that they were gods. The intellectual approach is what allowed us to actually figure it out. > analytical thinking is actually preventing people from understanding consciousness I don't know what "understanding consciousness" could possibly mean if it doesn't mean understanding it at an intellectual, analytical level. If you ask someone to explain what effect produces a rainbow, they might reasonably say "shut up dude, just sit here and enjoy it with me." That's totally fine! You may claim to appreciate rainbows more than physicists. But you don't understand them better. > If you want to discuss in good faith, you first need to understand the basics of this traditional view of consciousness. I honestly don't believe that I do. If I were required to understand what the Ancient Greeks and Siddhartha Gautama and Confucius all said about the tides before I learned about the moon's gravity, then I'd never learn anything at all! It's OK to reject incorrect ideas. > It seems as if you are using the word "automaton" as a diminutive ... Automation is not a bad thing. This is a great point and something I had not considered well. Thank you. > It is more practical to use the words in the same way others are using them. And I think I am; I think you're the one changing the word consciousness if you don't believe someone in the middle of partying hard is conscious, or someone with the inability to form long-term memories is conscious. That's not the common use of the word. > The word "qualia" is so overloaded with meaning, I will avoid it here altogether. The word "qualia" is devoid of meaning, which is why I used it as a parody of the (what I view is a) fallacy of accusing other people of not having consciousness, or accusing your past self of that simply because you can't remember having been conscious. > In my experience there are many levels of consciousness. Absolutely, and that makes these kinds of discussions hard. This is a great thing to keep in mind when discussing it. > If you don't remember being conscious, you are running on autopilot See that's where I completely disagree. If I don't remember having a stomach ache, does that mean I was never in pain? People forget things! You can also forget the experience of having been conscious! Our memories are very efficient at selectively forgetting the mundane; we are so highly conscious all the time that it is mundane. If I asked you to rate your level of consciousness yesterday, you'd probably rate it lower (more baseline/auto) than you would if I started showing you videos of everything you were doing yesterday. Suddenly you'd remember: oh yeah, I actually was conscious! Substitute consciousness for "pain" or "love" or "happy" -- ask a bitter divorcee how in love he was on his wedding day. Ask someone who was the victim of an accident 10 years ago how painful it was. Ask a teenager how happy they were when they went to Disney World when they were 6. All of them will dramatically understate how intense the feeling was. Come on! People just forget things! You are effectively accusing other people of not being as conscious as you because they don't meditate. I'm sorry, but an astrophysicist who is out on a walk pondering the intricacies of the λCDM model is not less conscious than you sitting there focusing on your nose. Both of you are at risk of getting smacked in the face with a stray soccer ball. By the way, the kid playing soccer is not less conscious than you either. He might even be more so, since he's not only living in the moment, but also actually aware of what's going on around him. > Discussion of "red-ness" I agree that your own experience of "redness" can change. I don't agree that it correlates with memory. Three people are on a street near some stark red flowers. The first is mentally rehearsing the important presentation he's heading to and barely registers the presence of the flowers. The second is out for a jog and appreciates the flowers' beauty in passing. The third is on LSD and has been staring at the flowers for twenty minutes. I'd argue the third person is experiencing the most "redness". Oh, except the LSD was laced with nasty stuff and he forgot the experience later. Sike! He was unconscious the whole time! Oh, and the 2nd person got a head injury 17 years later and forgot that entire year. Sike! He was retroactively unconscious the whole time too! And the first person died, so he doesn't remember anything, and therefore his whole life was retroactively unconscious!