You're making a category error. I don't assume that I am conscious. I know that directly. I assume others are conscious, but admit that I may be wrong.
— Unseen

Ok but you did say you assumed "we" are conscious not that others were conscious.

So it seems that you assume others are conscious but you are "certain" that some others (creatures) are not conscious. My point is that both these beliefs are assumptions (you have no unassumed evidence of consciousness/lack of consciousness in any human/creature). — ChrisH

I'm telling you what i meant. Nobody else can do that. Not even you. LOL

Assumptions can be justified. We base assumptions on evidence. My cat seems conscious like me arguing from analogy to myself, which is how I assume others are conscious, too. By contrast, my coleus plant on the window sill seems alive but not to be experiencing anything. It wilts if I forget to water it, but that's hard to build an analogical argument for consciousness on. It seems about as conscious as the rock on the window sill next to it.

If I'm wrong about other people, I'm unique and alone in the world.

Where is your answer to the OP? WHY are we conscious?

But you decide to raise your arm. Every time you make a decision, you experience yourself as free. Otherwise, making a decision would be impossible. You can only act at all by assuming that you have some degree of control over your actions. — Echarmion

Feeling free isn't BEING free. And while I, on the conscious level, FEEL free, I have no idea at all what my pre-conscious brain/mind feels. If, indeed, it feels anything. That part is beyond my direct experience.

The point is that you know what free will is, because you experience it. You can claim that this experience is an illusion, but we know what free will is just as we know what consciousness is. — Echarmion

I don't know what this "experience of free will" is. Sure, I raise my arm, but my brain knew I'd be doing that and set up the action before my awareness or experience. Was my brain free? How? I can't even plead lack of constraints, for it's constrained by the laws of physics.

You're making a category error. I don't assume that I am conscious. I know that directly. I assume others are conscious, but admit that I may be wrong.

‘As humans understand them’ - this is where your problem is. My definition of ‘sense’ is from the Oxford dictionary. Your anthropocentrism is getting in the way of your understanding of consciousness.

This takes me back to the query I had before: When you define ‘consciousness’ as ‘having experiences’, it seems like what you mean is ‘being aware that you are having experiences’, which in my view is a definition of self-awareness, NOT of consciousness.

Do you believe it is possible for consciousness to exist without self-awareness? — Possibility

What does self-awareness consist of, factually? If I'm having experiences, they are given to me by my brain, my pre-conscious "mind." The only sense in which they are "mine" is that I'm experiencing them, but perhaps I'm being fed someone else's experiences or artificially-produced experiences.

You're confusing "sense" with "stimulus." Senses, as humans understand them, are faculties that one has at least the capability of being conscious of (should the pre-conscious mind choose to send them on to the conscious mind)

I don't believe free will is possible, so what sort of will are you talking about and how does it work?
— Unseen

I am fairly certain you have direct experience of free will. It's what you experience when you act.

Assumptions can be quite logical and rational. I assume there's no hippopotamus in my coat closet for rational and logical reasons. I just looked in my closet and showed that it IS possible to prove a negative.
— Unseen

But only for empirical questions and only because the proof is itself based on assumptions. — Echarmion

Freedom in the sense of lack of constraints, even combined with a sensation of being free, is no proof of free will, for all of that is the product of a brain operating under the same deterministic rules as everything else in the universe (above the subatomic scale, where randomness seems to rule). Experiences are helpless to rescue free will.

My arguments don't rely on assumptions. They argue against the notion that consciousness is somehow necessary which appears to be merely an assumption without factual foundation.

I have never said that my belief that I'm conscious is an assumption. I know I'm conscious because I'm having experiences, which is consciousness as I'm speaking of it.

I don't believe free will is possible, so what sort of will are you talking about and how does it work?

Assumptions can be quite logical and rational. I assume there's no hippopotamus in my coat closet for rational and logical reasons. I just looked in my closet and showed that it IS possible to prove a negative.

An amoeba has no "senses" in the sense we generally use the term. Just responses.

I know it [that some creatures are not conscious] with about the same certainty as I know that I'm not writing from the surface of the moon.
— Unseen

You use the term 'certainty' differently to me. I'd say you have a working hypothesis based purely on assumptions. — ChrisH

The OP is a question; WHY are we conscious and the only assumption embodied in it is that we ARE conscious. Of course, maybe we're not.

I'm asking why we are conscious in the sense of "is it necessary to be conscious" not "how did our consciousness come about."

How do you elevate a chemical reaction (in an amoeba, for example) to a chemical condition outside its cellular border to having an experience? You're painfully close to personifying a single-celled creature's reaction to an environmental condition. A Roomba's navigation system may be more sophisticated than an amoeba's but we don't imagine that the Roomba is experiencing cleaning your floor.

Presumably it is a product of biological evolution. — Relativist

That's a how answer masquerading as a why answer. A genetic mutation, for example, might explain how some life got consciousness gratuitously, for example Plants can be very highly evolved, having elaborate self-defense systems, for example, as well as ways of tricking insects into pollinating them or becoming plant food for predatory plants. Our brain should be able to navigate the world and make decisions and choices based on sensory data with no assistance from the conscious mind, and in fact does this sort of thing below our level or awareness all the time.

I know it with about the same certainty as I know that I'm not writing from the surface of the moon. The lack of a sufficiently evolved nervous system—or the total absence of one—makes believing lower organisms might be conscious nevertheless borders on a religious belief. But if you want to invoke Cartesian doubt, swing for the fences.

I'll respond when you isolate your key point or points and make it/them concisely and with brevity. I've state elsewhere that I don't have time to respond to bedsheet posts. I've also quoted Einstein, who once said: “If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”

It depends on how you think consciousness evolved from non-living matter to plants and animals to humans. — Possibility

I don't think it evolved the way the eye evolved. I think it is a mutation that was never eliminated. The reason I believe this is that I see no need for consciousness in order to survive. Some of the most successful creatures on the planet, in terms of survival, are not conscious. Bacteria, the entire plant family.

I don't deny the primacy of mind. I deny that conscious mind is necessarily an essential, much less necessary, aspect of that mind. But mind itself isn't necessary to life. Witness plants. Our mind (=brain) could run the show without presenting anything to consciousness, as it actually does much of the time.

Experience itself, or participation in events, is necessary for the physical universe to exist. But is it necessary to be aware that we are having experiences? I think that depends on how much experience we have with an experience. — Possibility

I'll stop you right there. The universe literally would not exist without someone to perceive it. That is the position known as idealism (vs. materialism), the view that nothing exists apart from mind. Is that really your view? Very few philosophers hold that position anymore.

I wonder if you have gathered, from the article you read, that all actions taken by the mind are taken by the rest-of-the-mind, leaving the conscious mind as a passive observer? — Pattern-chaser

Well, that is pretty much my position. The real action goes on whether like it or know it or not, but we only find out about some of it. Since it's all going on before we find out about it, it's beyond our conscious control, so the conscious experiences we have are just evidence of what's going on in our mind, and we have no way to exert control. Humans, cats and dogs, and other mammals and higher life forms could live out their entire lives, acting in exactly the same ways, and all the while experiencing nothing at all. Like plants.

I believe this is possible, given our current knowledge, but I'm pretty sure that your conclusion has not yet been reached by the scientists working on it. — Pattern-chaser

Scientists often do not see the implications of their work on philosophical issues, and thus don't draw conclusions. How many scientists depend upon a deterministic world to carry out their formulae but don't sit down and ask, "Does cause and effect imply that my brain is imprisoned by causality as well?"

Empirical observation confirms that we also initiate or create experiences, for ourselves and for others. As conscious entities, we experience stuff, and we interact with the world so as to create experiences too, don't we? — Pattern-chaser

Yes, but it is the brain/pre-conscious mind doing that. It could be doing that without you being conscious (having experiences) at all!

So it's the brain that controls the body, in your world? Does the (immaterial) mind have no place in your scheme? Forget for a moment that the 'conscious mind' is part of the mind, and consider the mind as a whole. Every criticism you have levelled at consciousness seems also to apply to the mind as a whole. So, is the human mind just a figment, a frippery? After all, according to you it can do nothing...? — Pattern-chaser

The mind is a production of the brain.

You have said this a number of times, in different ways. You always refer to consciousness as a passive thing. Consciousness is "being in the state of having experiences", as you say. But surely there is an active aspect to this too? Empirical observation confirms that we also initiate or create experiences, for ourselves and for others. As conscious entities, we experience stuff, and we interact with the world so as to create experiences too, don't we? — Pattern-chaser

All the things you are attributing to consciousness are done by the brain in an activity we can all pre-conscious mind (a mind behind the mind we experience). There appears to be no need for a conscious mind.

As I have stated several times, in my terminology, "consciousness" is being in the state of having experiences. To be conscious is to be experiencing something, even if that happens to be a dream, because to be conscious is to be conscious of something. If you're experiencing something that isn't there at all, like a heat mirage shimmering, apparently, on or over the road in the distance. Rainbows, similarly, are quite visible to the eye, but it's a kind of mirage. Drive toward it and you'll never reach it.

I have defined consciousness for my purpose as being in the state of having experiences.

Your point is rather obvious, because the only way to be totally contemporaneous to what's going on is to BE what's going on.

You: Science shows us that consciousness is always temporally behind the times
— Unseen

Does this refer to sensory awareness?

Me: That, yes, and also in reference to the goings on in the brain..

You: and experiments show that the brain has made the decision before the consciousness thinks it has made it.
— Unseen

Is thinking carried out by the brain or consciousness?

Me: Consciousness is the state of having experiences. It is a passive state. I use the analogy of a person seeing a movie.

You: It follows from those things that the consciousness is merely an observer of brain activities.
— Unseen

If the brain is the centre of sensory input and processing, what is consciousness and how does it observe brain activities?

Me: How the brain effects (in the sense of "makes" or "brings about") consciousness is and may forever remain a mystery and we may have to be satisfied with "Well, somehow it happens," but the conscious mind simply gets what it is revealed to it. Obviously, the brain knows much more than it sends along to the conscious mind in the form of experiences.

(This is all I have time for but I think you can apply most of it to the rest of your post.)

Consciousness can manifest itself in a variety of ways, one way is through a body of some kind. Moreover, there are different levels of consciousness, and at some levels very little can be done, at other levels things can be done that are beyond your imagination. Essentially when we refer to consciousness we're talking about a mind or minds. — Sam26

I have levels of consciousness. Two of them. The pre-conscious "mind" which is in control, and the conscious mind watching whatever the pre-conscious mind sends its way.

Why? Because consciousness is the source of everything, and it's what unifies everything. There, I just gave you what will someday be one of the greatest discoveries of all time. :gasp: — Sam26

There's no evidence whatsoever that consciousness can do anything since deeds are decided upon before the consciousness finds out about them. How COULD the consciousness do anything? Are there buttons to push or levers to pull? How can something immaterial do anything, since all that consciousness is is a series of experiences.

But you have already dismissed science and philosophical analysis as suitable tools, and your entire pattern of posts in this thread consists in repeating the same primitive slogans over and over again, so I am not holding my breath. — SophistiCat

I have given you the science that shows that what is present in the consciousness is old news, having been processed in the brain a short time earlier. I don't know what sort of "philosophical analysis" I could do, especially since it doesn't seem necessary to analyze the obvious.

You don't believe in facts? I believe consciousness is a primitive, unanalyzable notion. We know it directly. It can't be put on a table and autopsied. It's something the brain does but there's only the one way to know it: directly through experiences, because that's all consciousness is: a series of experiences.

Hang your hat on someday you'll be right if you like.

From another post: Science shows us that consciousness is always temporally behind the times and experiments show that the brain has made the decision before the consciousness thinks it has made it. It follows from those things that the consciousness is merely an observer of brain activities.

You also wrote: "What I'm trying to get at is if you're just referring to consciousness from an uncritical or casual (layperson's) point of view or is it something that you have thought through and can give insight into your analytical process. How have you arrived at what consciousness is and how have you characterised it in relation to those that possess it?"

I don't think we can have much more than a layperson's analysis of consciousness. I think it's probably a so-called "primitive" (primary, unanalyzable concept, known directly and in no other way).

You can only know consciousness by experiences because having experiences is, basically, all consciousness is.

I've MADE an argument: Science shows us that consciousness is always temporally behind the times and experiments show that the brain has made the decision before the consciousness thinks it has made it. It follows from those things that the consciousness is merely an observer of brain activities.

If you want to maintain that consciousness is an entity unto itself and not merely an epiphenomenon of brain activities, where is it if not in the brain. How can it be in the brain and yet separate from it and in control of it like a driver drives a car? It's hard to avoid a mind/matter dualism if you want to go down that road.

Remember, we are discussing WHY we are conscious and not whether we are conscious or how it works or is produced.

Why are we conscious since it appears to be gratuitous? The brain could carry on without conscious and does so very much of the time, processing info we are unaware it's processing.

I'm not running away from the description of consciousness as an epiphenomenon of something temporally prior. What else can it be? A thing on its own? Then if you think the consciousness can exert control, what is the causal chain by which it's done? And then you're awaly from the monism adhered to by most scientists according to which everything is matter or an epiphenomenon of matter and talking about some form of the ghost in the machine.

If you're not convinced, tell me what WOULD convince you that the consciousness is simply a passive observer of goings on over which it has no control?

You wrote: " But you go farther, and assert that the conscious mind does nothing and has no function. This is not among the things that science has SHOWN us." I went farther, true, by following the logic.

Ah the cowards who hurl an insult as they rush out the door. Bye-b You and others seem to alccuse me of repeating myself. I've pointed out (I repeat) that science SHOWS that the real action goes on temporally before the news gets to consciousness. That's the science of the brain. The ball is in your court. Refute that fact and show how the conscious mind is actually in control of the brain before the brain knows what it's doing.

Cut the jibber-jabber.

The conscious mind is a show the brain/pre-conscious mind puts on. There is no dualism asserted. The conscious mind is something the brain does.

You wrote: "How about this: Consciousness is simply a byproduct/side-effect of logical ability." In other words, as science is showing us, NONE of the real thinking and decision-making is done in the conscious mind. It's done in the pre-conscious mind before the brain makes us aware of it.