This is what I have understood the difference between a sociopath and psychopath to be: a sociopath is a person with a withered, weak ability to empathize. A psychopath has a physical inability to empathize- it's impossible to. The difference is similar to one having weak arms and the other not having arms.
Please let me know if this is not correct.

Rather than scour the entire thread you attached I would like to request the 'evidence' that a bat cannot feel what others (bats) feel. Do they show the same physical impairment a psychopath has?

Well, I think it refers to the idea that even a rock has some sort of information integration, even if tiny. Say the way atoms are arranged maybe. But Tononi, the theory's founder explicitly supports panpsychism. IIT does say that inanimate objects may have a 'phi' that's larger than 0 and thus a small amount of consciousness. Panpsychism, I think is saying consciousness is a fundamental part of reality, much like energy or information. IIT supposedly brings evidence to this effect. but I would have to go back and refresh my memory on the specifics of both panpsychism and IIT at this point.

I'm not sure how much Integrated Information Theory has been mentioned here, but it is a panpsychism supporting scientific theory regarding consciousness. It absolutely postulates that information, its complexity and, well, integration are responsible for consciousness, or more succinctly consciousness is a result of such complexity and integration in a system. It is fascinating in that you can have embedded consciousness systems within systems (though I believe that the most complex and integrated one "wins over' the others in an all or nothing game.

Great question. I would say that even if we find intermediates of di and tri they will be separate and distinct phenomenal experiences. Eg. Blurry vision is not clear vision. This idea feels very Hume like. I can't put my finger on why though. But I believe it has something to do with the illusion of continuity?

From a psychosocial angle, which is one I'm more comfortable with, it goes without saying that translating from one language to another throws up weird artifacts of meaning. For example, the Ancient Greek ἀντίστροφος, counterpart, literally means twisted together, which I traced back to originating in ordinary rope. Clearly vocabulary binds fluent speakers to a certain scheme, as your Korean example alludes to. — Zophie

This example seems to correlate well with the externalist view of belief and meaning. We have an artifact in the world and an interpretation by which the word forms and categorizes. What I find curious is where these priorities of say the Korean group on prepositions (I live in Korea and have never heard of this!) and that of Europeans prioritizing nouns comes from. The environmental pressures narrow focus and create differences in behavior which creates differences in linguistic focus? That seems too easy of an explanation.

Ah, yes. I was aware Chalmers had written something about their positions. It was his name that led me to the two types of contents. Thanks!

Another way of looking at the issue is to ignore spatial location altogther. Imagine Max Black's two symmetric spheres and call them A1 and A2. Hide them in a box and pick two locations in space S1 and S2. You pick the spheres at random and place one at S1 and the other at S2. Would you be able to, just on the basis of spatial location (S1 and S2), tell which sphere is A1 and which sphere is A2? No! Ergo, space or spatial location has no relevance to identity. Since the two spheres A1 and A2 are identical in all other respects, it must be that A1 is identical to A2. — TheMadFool

I believe this leaves out the fact that they ARE in different locations. i'm not sure you can leave out that fact to claim they are identical but not the same. I could just as easily say "well that one is different because it's over there, and that one is different because it's over there. It's not important to know which one is S1 or S2 only that they are different from each other at that instance in time.
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Also for there to be no ability to discern who's a copy and whose the original wouldn't this :

3. x is a copy of y [neither 1 nor 2] if and only if x and y are indiscernible with respect to all attributes assignable to x and y except the attribute of spatial location at an instance of time. — TheMadFool

have to be this :

"x is a copy of y [neither 1 nor 2] if and only if x and y are indiscernible with respect to all attributes assignable to x and y except the attribute of spatial location at ANY instance of time."

It may be nitpicking, in which case, I apologize. But it seems without it we can claim all sorts of difference as any other time.

In anycase, I really enjoyed the 3 premises! It was very clear and insightful.

I can't think of any examples of borderline cases of consciousness. If one thinks that consciousness emerges, say in the development of an embryo, then there is a change from the embryo not experiencing anything at all (not conscious), to the embryo experiencing something (conscious). But the distinction between nothing and something in this context must be sharp, no? What could a middle ground between something and nothing possibly be? If you can think of an example, please let me know. — bert1

I agree with you I think. Confusion with this goes back again to awareness and access to content and modes of awareness (consciousness?). We get caught up in the massive amounts of content and modes that consciousness can play with, and we misunderstand those as gradients.

So let's say the consciousness of an embryo starts off as an awareness of an on and off, two options. As it develops into a more integrated and complex (information) 'system' it somehow develops a larger repertoire of options to be aware of. It can now see and separate (or the world enables it to see and separate if you are an externalist) what it sees into objects. Eventually, with language, it can experience concepts. But all of those still follow a nothing to something jump. A good example of the confusion might be the following. Dichromatic vision to Trichromatic vision is not a step up in the gradient of chromatics. It is dichromatic or not dichromatic, or trichromatic and not trichromatic.

Let me know if this offers anything to the discussion or if there is something I've left out, etc.

Can we state that awareness is not self-awareness if we do not yet understand what awareness is? I feel there is a bit of the multiple drafts theory by Dennett in self-awareness and awareness 'proper'.

I am not a fan of Block's distinction or definition of P-consciousness. I think you and I may be closely aligned with Drestke's interpretation consciousness.

This is a long thread so If I have repeated anything please let me know.

@-Bert1

"The idea of phenomenal consciousness is that no matter how vague and insubstantial your content of consciousness is, you are still conscious, because you are aware of something, whatever it is. And that is all that is needed to fulfil the definition, so you are fully conscious in the phenomenal sense. (NOT in the medical sense like Banno keeps returning to - that sense indeed admits of any number of degrees.) So the idea is that anything is either phenomenally conscious or not, there is no middle ground, there is no partial consciousness, there are no borderline cases, there exist no states, functions, configurations or whatever in which it is indeterminate as to whether a thing is conscious or not." — Bert1

If phenomenal consciousness is only 'awareness of something' then it is possible to be aware of very little content and / or modes of content. So, say one can only hear or not hear. There is no degree in volume or tambre, etc. But what then is awareness? What is the "what it's like to be" of this sound, however rudimentary? It sems to me (in my ignorance) that both emergence and panpsychism offer little to this question. No philosophical position tackles this well, even if we claim seperate realms between the physical and mental.

There are still questions about what this 'awareness is, where it comes from, and how it comes to be (if it comes to be at all). My intuition says - oddly enough- that there is something about our intuitions on this subject which force us into the wrong direction. Can philosophy avoid enough intuition (is logic an intuition?) to tackle consciousness? Some here have mentioned Wiggenstein's view that it's all word games. Will tackling the questions of consciousness force philosophy to reexamine itself and the way it operates? It seems there is a strange loop that endevour.