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It means one thing to people who study consciousness. https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/consciousness-is-a-great-mystery https://www.theintrinsicperspe
by Noaidi 1y ago
It means one thing to people who study consciousness.
https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/consciousness-is-a-great-mystery https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/consciousness-is-a...
- galangalalgol 1y agoBut that accepted definition is that it means everything... "What it means to be a bat" isn't a useful definition. I will accept that is what the word means and defend the viewpoint the word is thus useless.
- Noaidi 1y agoThis is the last paragraph of his article for people who aren’t going to read the whole article. “ So yes, there is scientific confusion about what consciousness is! And there’s metaphysical confusion about what consciousness is! But there’s no definitional confusion about the word “consciousness” itself. People know what needs to be explained, it’s just that explaining the phenomenon is very hard, and no one fully has yet.“
- mensetmanusman 1y ago/anything I don’t understand is useless/
- ben_w 1y agoThat linked page is just a long-winded assertion that only their own definition counts. It's also a definition which is completely untestable and presently unfalsifiable.
- Noaidi 1y agoHe’s a neuroscientist that studies consciousness. I think that gives him more valid reasons to have this definition than someone who programs computers.
- ben_w 1y agoHe himself would criticise you for doing so, even just on the basis of what he put in that blog post, as you're using an argument from authority.
- Noaidi 1y agoI believe you’re being disingenuous and hopes that no one reads the full article. Because what he said is more nuance than what you’re proposing that we should not appeal to authority. I’ll post what he said here just to be clear. “ I fully admit that this is an appeal to authority! But saying you should rely on the framings of a scientific field, like literally just respecting how it defines terms, is extremely reasonable as an appeal. It’s also very different than saying you should blindly believe the conclusions of that field. While “trust the experts” is often too strong a claim, the much weaker ask of “use the agreed-upon vocabulary the experts use when discussing the field” is actually quite reasonable, and most people who want to have an opinion about a scientific (or philosophical) subject should respect the used terms. The same goes for consciousness.”
- Byamarro 1y agoI think we can do better than to have this level of argumentation. Regardless if the pretending comment had a merit to it or not
- Byamarro 1y agoWhat he refers to is more specifically called phenomological consciousness afaik (just skimmed through tho)
- tsimionescu 1y agoTo save everyone a click: this objective definition of consciousness is "the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism". This is quite obviously circular, even though it sounds fun initially.
- markhahn 1y agothat is NOT what the article says. read the article, it's a pretty good survey.