2 ms·
There’s an entire philosophical literature around that, which is generally taken for granted when discussing consciousness. A good starting point is Thomas Nage
by antonvs 6mo ago
There’s an entire philosophical literature around that, which is generally taken for granted when discussing consciousness. A good starting point is Thomas Nagel’s “What is it like to be a bat?”. The soundbitey version of his definition is that “There is something it is like” to be conscious - it involves a subjective experience - whereas for example there is nothing it is like (most people presume) to be a rock, or say an ordinary computer.
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf
- boxed 6mo agoSure. But it's super obvious from context that different speakers do NOT agree on any of that.
- antonvs 6mo agoIf the notion of consciousness they're referring to doesn't meet the normal philosophical criteria, then they're essentially just wrong. Which is quite possible - many people seem very confused on the subject, which is not too surprising, especially for scientists who essentially reject philosophy, like Dawkins.
- boxed 6mo agoPhilosophy doesn't own words afaik. Words have different meaning in different domains. > many people seem very confused on the subject, which is not too surprising, especially for scientists who essentially reject philosophy, like Dawkins Or they just use words in a different domain and you didn't notice and now you're angry because what they said didn't make sense. Come now, surely philosophy must handle such trivial cases of linguistic basic knowledge? If now, I'm gonna have to reject philosophy too since it'd be trying to reject a much harder science (linguistics).
- antonvs 6mo agoThe philosophical meaning of consciousness is usually what people are referring to when they talk about consciousness. Can you point to some other commonly used "different meaning" that's being used or intended in these discussions? > I'm gonna have to reject philosophy too You'll have lots of intellectually stunted company.
- tim333 6mo agoPhilosophy isn't even very good at defining words. If you look up 'what is consciousness' in the philosophy section you'll get hundreds of pages of contradictory ideas.