↪Tom Storm It reeks of the No True Scotsman fallacy. Only true Scotsmen will understand Bert.

↪bert1 has yet to provide us with anything like a definition of consciousness. But he says he is a panpsyhist, (↪bert1), so if he thinks rocks are conscious then it would be best for him not to provide such a definition. — Banno

I've offered synonyms. That qualifies as a definition. I have invited you to be aware of your awareness, which you haven't yet done. If you had, that would be a kind of ostensive definition. Unfortunately I don't think it is possible to provide a definition in terms of things other than the thing defined. That's just how it is with foundational concepts.

Note that people who already have the concept have no trouble at all knowing what I'm talking about.

EDIT: can you make sens of my claim: "Rocks have experiences". Does that sentence have any intelligible meaning for you (regardless of whether you think it is true or false)?

Yeah, which we can, of course. Hence my invoking the Glasgow coma scale earlier. We can (and do) use the term sometimes in a perfectly 'physical function' kind of way. There's no one thing 'consciousness' is. It's just a word. Like most words, it's used in all sorts of ways with all sorts of degrees of success. — Isaac

Indeed. Banno insists the Glagow coma scale is the only definition. Or at least all definitions are really aspects of one sense of consciusness, and that is a public, functional one.

We all know what each other is talking about to some extent in each case (enough to get by) but it doesn't require any of those objects to correlate with something empirical science might reify. — Isaac

Sure, that';s true with things except consciousness. To put it in Cartesian terms, it is coherent to doubt the existence of pixies, God and phlogiston, but it is incoherent to doubt consciousness. Because doubting itself (arguably, I guess) entails consciousness. To doubt is the act of a conscious thing. So there is certainty attached to consciousness in a way that doesn't attach to invisible unicorns.

Do we know there's something by virtue of which we have experiences? Can't we just have them, does some additional factor need to 'allow' it? — Isaac

No particularly, I was just trying to relate the words 'consciousness' and 'experience' in a sentence such that they are linked in meaning, which I think they clearly are.

The hard problem has, as a foundational axiom, the notion that the things we talk about - experiences, awareness,... - ought to be causally connected to the objects of empirical sciences. — Isaac

Yes, I think that's sort of right. Of course, people who like to go on about the hard problem (me for instance) tend to use this a sort of reductio:

1) Assume that consciousness is caused/realised/instantiated/whatever by some physical processes
2) Figuring out exactly how seems impossibly hard
therefore 3) It's probably not the case that consciousness is caused/realised/instantiated/whatever by some physical processes

But this only has any force if we have a particular definition of 'consciousness'. If we define consciousness as a physical function, for example, the hard problem disappears. That's why definitions are absolutely crucial.

You seem quite adamant that the concept is there, but some are 'missing' it, yet you don't seem to be able to provide the necessity that would set it apart from, say, ether, or humours, or phlem...loads of concepts which we made use of at one time, but turned out just not to refer to anything at all. — Isaac

That's a good question. Ether was proposed to solve a problem, namely a medium to carry electromagnetic radiation, or something. Humours were a way of explaining illness. These were crappy scientific theories, but scientific and somewhat testable, so were eventually abandoned for better theories. Consciousness isn't like that. It's just a name for something we know exists, namely whatever it is in us by virtue of which we can have experiences. And this definitely exists, unless you want to deny that we have experiences, which you might. The concept of consciousness in this sense is non-committal. It might turn out to be a ghostly ectoplasm. Or it might turn out to be a brain state. It might turn out to be a brain function. It might turn out to be integrated information. It might turn out to be a soul. It might turn out to be space. It might turn out to be a property of the quantum field. It might be an illusion caused by how we use language. Whatever. The point is, before we can start disagreeing about these theories, we have to agree on what it is these theories are theories of. That's the definition part. That's what, as usual, we are stuck on.

Concepts, unhelpfully, often contain a mixture of theory and definition, which makes things harder. It's helps if we ca separate them out.

If that's what you mean, bert, I admitted that I don't. — 180 Proof

What we have is different theories. I'm a panpsychist. You, at various times have been a functionalist, enactivist, probably one or two other things I forget. The question is, do our theories compete? Are they theories of the same thing? That's what I'm trying to get at.

I'll put the question another way that doesn't involve you reading my mind, or even reading any of my posts (I gave my definitions a few posts ago in reply to Banno).

Please state, in your own words, what the hard problem is. I know you think it's nonsense, but that doesn't stop you stating it. I think that the flat-earth theory is wrong, but I can still state what it is.

What is my concept?

No. It's a perfectly simple question. If you have the same concept I have, even if you think it's incoherent or whatever, you should be able to explain, in your words, the concept I have.

Banno and 180,

What do you think I mean by the word 'consciousness'?

I think you've just illustrated my point.

Well, knowing and feeling and sentience are not each equivalent to the others. — Banno

They can be equivalent, in this sense I'm trying to talk about.

That last one... what is it? — Banno

Probably an unhelpful addition, it causes a lot of confusion

Are you saying 180 proof and I lack awareness, or lack the concept of awareness, or what? And how do you know this? What basis do you have for your claim? — Banno

I'm saying, reluctantly, that you lack the concept of awareness. But I don't know this for sure. I think you are aware. You both seem to avoid the concept. One explanation for this is that you don't have it. You don't avoid the word, but you seem to construe it in its non-phenomenal senses, at least when going into detail.

My old tutor at university, Stephen Priest, once said to me "Some of my colleagues haven't noticed they are conscious." I didn't take him seriously at the time. I thought it was absurd, these guys were smart guys. But I'm reluctantly coming to the view that he was right. It seems like the only realistic explanation for what is happening. There has been some papers on this. Off the top of my head, I think it's Max Velmans who wrote "How not to define consciousness", if I remember correctly. It might be interesting to do a thread on one of these papers about definition.

phenomenal consciousness..." - what is it? — Banno

Equivalently:

- sentience
- the capacity to feel
- the capacity to know
- that in X whereby there is 'something it is like' to be X

These are all abiguous though, they can be construed in a way that avoids the concept. And sure enough, that's what you have done many times. I don't think that's you being deliberately obtuse, I think you genuinely don't get it.

The issue is that consciousness can only be defined by appeal to someone's consciousness of their own consciousness.

phenomenal consciousness — Banno

Awareness

So what exactly am I missing? — Banno

I'm not sure. I don't really know why some people have the concept and some don't.

Is this the concept you say I don't have? — Banno

Yes

that the issue is about the self? — Banno

No, phenomenal consciousness. The subject of the thread.

I just don't know whether it seems like I'm phenomenally conscious is different than actually being conscious in the hard sense. — Marchesk

Seeming to be conscious is equivalent to being conscious, no? Just as a matter of definition.

Ok, so if 'experience' is the word we're using to describe the post hoc storytelling, then neuroscience has a few quite good models for that. There doesn't seem to be a hard problem there. — Isaac

That's great! So what is it about the neuronal models that explain how it is that I feel like I'm having an experience, when I'm not? Why can't all the neuronal stuff happen without me thinking I'm having an experience?

Possibly. They'd need to have eyes, but I don't see any reason they couldn't. — Isaac

OK, so this clearly separates two concepts of consciousness. One in which experience is not part of the concept. One in which it is.

One way to solve the hard problem of consciousness is simply to say experiences are illusions, ad-hoc rationalisations, not real, don't exist. That's a genuine solution.

Sure, but it's the milliseconds after that is relevant. Maybe I didn't have an experience three milliseconds ago, but I am now. I may have been a zombie 3 milliseconds ago, but I know I'm not now.

Consciousness - The property of scoring 4:5:6 on the Glasgow coma scale. — Isaac

That's consistent with not having an experience. Is that right?

I think it can be. It could be that I receive data, respond to it, then later rationalise that whole event chain as 'an experience' which could be nothing more than a post hoc story about what happened, not an accurate account of what really happened. — Isaac

This is really interesting. Could you flesh out what this 'post hoc' rationalisation is entailed by the word 'experience'? You clearly think that saying something has an experience is theory-laden. What am I committed to do you think? What would show that someone who thought they had an experience, didn't really?

Your claim (as I understand it) is that something is going on in (or around) you, called 'an experience' which is not just neural activity. — Isaac

That's not what I intend to claim. My claim is (I allege) theory-neutral. It may be that experiences just are neuronal activity, or whatever. But for the person, the subject, (whatever that turns out to be physically or metaphysically), the fact of their subjectivity is a given, otherwise we don't even have an example to talk about. As soon as we speak about consciousness, in this phenomonlogical sense, we have a subject of an experience. We can argue about what they are experiencing is, but not about the presence of the subject.

Take you, right now. You are talking to bert1 on a philosophy forum. But are you though? I could be a bot pretending to be bert1. I might be Banno, who has killed me and is using my computer because he's insane. You might be dreaming. So all of that content you think you are experiencing might be wrong. But the fact that something is happening, you are aware of something happening, whatever it turns out to be, can't be wrong, can it? Is it possible, from your point of view, that you are not really having an experience of any sort at all at the moment? Even if you are experiencing an illusion, you are still experiencing that, no?

Why not? — Isaac

Because I'm not specifying any particular content. There nothing to be wrong about.

Some people say they don't use foundational concept X, for instance the concept of "truth", and they truly believe that they do not use the concept, while actually using it just like anybody else. They just use it while remaining unaware that they do. IOW, they simply lie to themselves. — Olivier5

Yes, I think you may well be right about that.

Yes, and in fact, isn't it exactly what we are seeing here, on this and all the other threads on the same subject? — Olivier5

Broadly, yes, I agree

Why not? I don't see any prima facie reason why someone ought be 'having an experience' just because they say they are. — Isaac

OK, of course, they could theoretically be a zombie, reporting an experience that they're not having because they don't have experiences. We can only properly talk about this is the first person, because that is what the concept entails. So I will talk about me. If I hear voices in my head and I think they are spirits possessing me, I could be wrong. What I can't be wrong about is that I'm having an experience.

You mean "Even people like 180 Proof and @Banno, who are well educated and sophistacated thinkers in many ways, genuinely don't seem to have the concept." — Isaac

Thank you for being more conscientious than I can be bothered to be. :)

I've had lengthy conversations with both of them on this.

The Grady Coma Scale is instrumental.

The Glasgow Coma Scale contains more nuanced data. — Isaac

These are perfectly good definitions of one sense of consciousness. but not the sense involved in the hard problem. They are two different concepts. Your clarity is helpful.

Isaac, I'm very sympathetic to your response. It's exactly what I would say in your position.

Lets take the hearing voices example. The analogy is not apt, because with hearing voices, there is content to the experience, and the theory that the voices are spirits possessing the body admits of being false. What doesn't admit of being false is that the person is experiencing something-or-other, in other words, they are having an experience. And a fortiori, if they are having an experience of something, they are aware, or conscious.

Me, I consider it perfectly normal to lack a precise definition for a philosophical concept. You probably could not define the word "definition" in a way that isn't vague and slippery.... and yet you keep asking for definitions. — Olivier5

I think it is possible to precisely define, but not using words that don't already contain the concept. The definition is ostensive. Ostensive definitions typically point to some public object. But with consciousness the 'pointing' is reflexive and 'internal'. It's turning awareness in on itself. Some people can do it, I think you can. Oddly some people seem to struggle with it, almost as if they are zombies. I hesitate to say that as it seems so insulting - people lacking a basic concept of what, in part, they are. Even people like 180 Proof and Banno, who are well educated and sophistacated thinkers in many ways, genuinely don't seem to have the concept. I don't really understand it though, I don't know how people can not have it. Some people seem to have it and then say it's a 'folk concept' like elan vital or something, which seems to show that they don't have it after all. I can list people on this forum who do and don't seem to have the concept.

EDIT: I'm acutely aware this sounds like the tailors in the emperor's new clothes. It's most dissatisfactory. I hate that there is, in philopsophy, a divide between those who have a concept and those who don't. We should all share the same concepts, and then proceed to argue about what they tell us about the world and consciousness, and have genuinely competing theories. But if we don't share concepts, it's hard to even get a conversation started in which people are not missing each others points.

180 never takes responsibility for the clarity of his own posts.

I do understand that. I even understand why it's hard to imagine that that experience could be explainable in terms of biology and neurology. It's just so immediate and intimate. I can feel that, but I just don't get why people think that is any different from how all the other phenomena whirling around us come to be. — T Clark

I think it might be because many of the issues are conceptual and not empirical.

So I don't see that your definition is of much help in working out what we ought do, which is, after all, the point of ethics. — Banno

Is that the point of ethics? I don't know. If so, it has always seemed to me to be a misguided pursuit. Suppose I work out, by a consideration of ethics, what I ought to do. What happens then? Why would I do it? My will has to somehow be engaged, no?

Oh come on Banno. The same thing can be both good an not good depending on the point of view. From my point of view rape is bad. From the rapist's point of view it's good. That's not a contradiction.

He can't say for sure if even rape is not a good. — Banno

Sure I can. Rape isn't good. Which just means I don't want to do it nor do I want other people to.

That is, one can consistently conceive of someone willing what is not good. — Banno

I can't conceive of a good that is good from nobody's point of view, that isn't willed by someone.

There can be contradictory goods in a world with multiple wills. From a rapist's point of view, raping someone is fab, if a bit sweaty.

"Good" is an adjective denoting that a thing that is good is a thing that is advantageous and pleasant and helpful and accommodating OR at least three at the same time and in the same respect of the aforementioned qualifiers.

I invite examples that debunk this definition. — god must be atheist

I like it. So X is good iff it is three of advantageous, pleasant, helpful and accommodating.

These are interesting. Advantageous, helpful and accommodating are adjectives describing a means to an end. The end pursued is the good thing, and things that help you get there are instrumentally good, right?

Pleasure, as Hume observed, seems to be an end in itself.

So we have two theories here, do we? Would you like to unify these and say that the good is pleasure and anything that helps us get there is instrumentally good?

So, what is good? — Shawn

That which is willed