This doesn’t really help us to define consciousness, except to recognise the context of what we’re doing when we define it. What we can say about consciousness will always be an aspect of consciousness, limited by our own capacity to experience, and to reconstruct that experience from language. — Possibility

Everything you've written makes sense to me. I don't know enough to be able to say whether or not it's correct, but it's the kind of answer I would expect to be right. I hope that makes sense. As I said, I don't buy the whole hard problem thing, but I can understand why people feel that way.

---

I do think that people should generally object to the usage of "waffle", — thewonder

I just jumped in because @Banno is a pain in the butt. He just needs to be metaphorically smacked every so often.

I am not aware of any sexist meaning for "waffle" or any related word.

I assume that Banno is from the U.K., though, where that sort of thing is, for whatever reason, considered acceptable, — thewonder

No, no, no. It is much, much worse than that. Much worse. Banno is from (here, let me whisper in you ear ...Australia).

We are the rotting corpse of God, heading to annihilation.

I'm sure I'm missing some details, but I think the main point is given. I don't know why, but the idea of "God" killing himself is haunting, in a certain way... — Manuel

Sorry I didn't respond sooner. Your post slipped through my net. I really like the metaphor. Not so much the sentiment.

From "Devil Behind the Wheel" by Chris Knight. Wonderful singer and songwriter.

Behind the wheel, the devil got behind the wheel
Straight downhill
My soul was riding shotgun south of kingdom come
In a long black Coupe Deville
With horns on the grill
The devil's behind the wheel

You were insinuating that I was a waffle, which is clearly an insult. I don't really care, though. — thewonder

That's just a case of the pot calling the kettle a black waffle.

That is intriguing. I have heard people say this occasionally about fiction writers (never philosophy) but I always assumed it was hyperbole. I've enjoyed writers and books but nothing I've read has ever made a difference to my overall happiness (as far as I can tell). — Tom Storm

As I said, I've never had much respect for the convoluted thought processes of our western great philosophers. I was shocked when someone I care about and respect told me how much Kant had meant to them. How his and others' writing had provided a safe mental space in a difficult life. That wasn't the only time I heard about something like that. I still like to joke about how these guys can take something so simple and wonderful and make it impenetrable and painful. But I always keep my friend in the back of my mind.

But, of course, you have Lao Tzu to inspire you. — Jack Cummins

Yeah, but he didn't save me. He just picked me up and gave me a ride.

John Searle says that, like many other terms, consciousness is best defined ostensively, that is, by pointing to examples. — Daemon

Ironically, perhaps, you've used a somewhat non-standard definition for "ostensively." You've addressed any possible misunderstanding by specifically identifying the meaning you are using. That is exactly the process I am describing when I say:

Agreed, but for the purposes of a philosophical discussion, or any specific discussion, it is more important that we agree on a definition than that the definition is precisely correct. — T Clark

How far do you think this thread has progressed in the right direction? — Apollodorus

I've found it very interesting and helpful and I've had fun. Others have indicated that they feel the same way. That's all I ever ask.

Are you suggesting that we agree on a set of definitions and then agree on one of them whenever we choose to discuss anything that involves "consciousness"? — Apollodorus

No. The purpose of this thread is not necessarily to agree on definitions. It's to get them all out on the table so we can use and discuss them more intelligently in our other discussions. I'm actually a bit more confused than I was at the beginning. Or maybe it's more accurate to say I didn't know how confused I was back then.

I don't know if you've read any of my OPs in the past. What I try to do is be very specific about what the terms I plan to use mean in the context I plan to use them and provide justification. I generally willing to discuss different meanings and terms, but the final decision is mine. Then I try to enforce that meaning throughout the discussion. Oh, the wonderful power of the original poster.

Of course, this can be endlessly debated. — Manuel

Clearly this is true. Thanks for the information.

In that case, you would need to redefine the term with every new discussion. — Apollodorus

You don't have to redefine it, just agree on what definition you are going to use.

The term still implies "awareness" and above all "self-awareness". What has changed? — Apollodorus

Have you read the OP? Maybe you should.

Well, that much I've noticed already to be honest. I was talking about everyday language in general. When we say things like "I become conscious", "I become aware", "I am self-conscious", etc. it is normally understood what is meant even if there is no precise definition for it in our mind. — Apollodorus

I don't think that's true. Although failure to agree on definitions is a particular problem here on the forum, it is also a broader problem for discussions in general. As a civil engineer, I have to be very careful about what words I choose to use. Someday we can talk about the differences between the terms "hazardous waste," "hazardous material," and "hazardous substance." People can get in big trouble if they don't understand the difference.

Interesting that you ‘recognise’ experience as a movie playing in your head. You do realise that this is a construction and not a recognition as such. So is talking to yourself about what is going on - it’s a probabilistic construction using the logic and qualities of language as an approximation. — Possibility

I don't disagree and I generally don't think there is a hard problem of consciousness, but I can't deny seeing the movie in my head. You calling that a "construction" doesn't change the fact that the movie feels like something. Some people think the experience must have a fundamentally different cause than the brain processing

No, there isn't a single correct definition, so it's a waste of time looking for that. I think you have to state your own working definition, in the specific context. — Daemon

That's what this whole thread is about.

His take is that "emotion" is primary, and is located in the brain stem, a more "primitive" part of the brain. We've been looking in the wrong place. — Daemon

I think @Possibility would disagree with this.

And it must be consistent with how the word has been used for centuries. — Apollodorus

I disagree. I has to be consistent with the word's common usage now and it's particular usage in a particular context and a particular conversation.

in order to know whether you have come up with a correct definition, you must already know what the term means. — Daemon

Agreed, but for the purposes of a philosophical discussion, or any specific discussion, it is more important that we agree on a definition than that the definition is precisely correct.

I still think that monism and property dualism are essentially the most often pursued views. I don't know many people who believe in substance dualism, aside from theologists. — Manuel

By "substance dualism" do you mean that matter and consciousness are fundamentally different substances? If so, that is a common belief. Chalmers in the paper on the hard problem is explicit about that.

I understand what you mean but it is an inherent limit of language. We all use the same terms but due to “personality” and “individual identity and experience” the terms will always vary in what we each associate them with and understand. — Benj96

Agreed, ambiguity is an inherent characteristic of language. That just means we have to try harder to agree in advance what words mean. Failure to do that is bad philosophy or, in a broader context, bad communications.

I think if we try to define every term unanimously we end the fluid nature of language. — Benj96

This thread isn't about word definitions in general, it's about word definitions for use in philosophical discussions here on the thread. If an artist and an ophthalmologist want to have a discussion about color (note correct Amurcan spelling), they should make sure they're talking about the same thing.

Similarly I cannot refer to the term “consciousness” with anything but the content of consciousness. It’s self- referential and therefore can never be objective. — Benj96

Ok, so it's impossible to discuss consciousness. And yet we discuss it here on the forum endlessly. Part of the reason the discussions are endless is that people don't agree on the definition they're using at the beginning.

To put it in rather non-philosophical language: that there seems to be someone here who is experiencing the world and at the same time thinking and pondering about that act of experiencing - along with a strong presumption that this is true of other people too, that there are someones there. It appears that the world is populated by conscious or aware minds who inhabit human bodies and who have space, distance to question and doubt all things, including their own reality. — hwyl

I don't think anyone posting on this thread disagrees with this. If they do, I hope they'll speak up.

Terms like “consciousness” aren’t normally a problem because the meaning is understood from the context. — Apollodorus

It is clear to me from discussions on the thread that this isn't true. Actually, it's a broader topic than just this particular word. Discussions on the forum and elsewhere suffer from the fact that definitions are not agreed on at the beginning. If you read the rest of the thread I think you'll see this is true for "consciousness."

The content of your own experience, too, is constructed from inference, as is the ‘you’ who experiences. What we can be certain of is the faculty of consciousness - awareness with. Anything else is inference. — Possibility

I'd like to believe that. It would make my philosophical and psychological position on this question easier to defend. The problem is that I do recognize my own personal experience. There's a movie playing in my head with sound and a script. I'm also here talking to myself about what is going on and what I think about what is going on and what I think about my experience of what is going on.

I sometimes feel that I should be reading Kant and Schopenhauer, and I have read portions of their writings. When I do read the philosophers I try to do so as if I was meeting them as individuals, as great minds to learn from. — Jack Cummins

I want to make clear that I don't deny the value of these writers. I think I used to, but I have met people who were saved by Kant, Dante, or other classical writer. I mean that seriously, if not entirely literally. I find it moving to read about the differences those authors made in people's lives. I recognize the value, it's just not my way.

How important is our reading as the foundation for philosophical explorations? — Jack Cummins

Again, I'll bring out one of my favorite quotes from Franz Kafka:

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

The world is right there for us to see. It's not hiding. We don't necessarily need other people to show us the way. I carry a model of the world around inside me - Whatever was there before I was born plus 69 years of experience, learning, reading, thinking, watching... When a question comes up, it's the model I go to for answers.

That's not to say reading and learning isn't important. I have ideas about how the world works that are wrong, either because I don't have the right information or because I've come to the wrong conclusions. There are also lots of aspects of the world I don't know about. And then there are issues I haven't thought through.

As for reading philosophy, I find that most of it leaves me empty. The experiences and understandings that Kant, Plato, Schopenhauer, and all those guys write about are not the experiences and understandings I have. They take something I see as pretty simple and make it much more convoluted. On the other hand, Lao Tzu speaks to me in a profound way - the universe in 81 verses and 5,000 words.

Doesn’t this destroy the subjectivity of consciousness, the very essence of awareness? — Joshs

I think that subjectivity is the so-called hard problem. I don't see it as a problem. There is only one subjective experience in my universe - mine. Everyone else's is just an inference from observations and analogy. Looking at my own experience, I don't see it as particularly mysterious. It's just what happens when I talk about myself to myself and then talk about talking to myself to myself ....

The only difficulty which I have with your definitions are that they are a bit too precise and rigid. — Jack Cummins

When I start out with a definition, I try to use the common, everyday way a word is used perhaps adding scientific or philosophical shading. In order to do that, I usually take two definitions from on-line dictionaries and one from Wikipedia. You're right, that process tends to leave out some of the nuance. That's what the follow up discussion is for.

I think that you may have made it too neat and tidy, with no blurry or hazy borders at all. We probably would not be able to agree fully on a definition at all on the forum. This is because trying to do so cannot be separated entirely from the questions about the nature of consciousness, which is one of the most central recurrent problems, or themes, within philosophy. — Jack Cummins

I agree completely. I never expected that we would really resolve a definition or even definitions. I just wanted to get the choices out on the table. At least, next time I get involved in a discussion, I'll have an idea of what I'm trying to say. I'll also know some questions to ask about what others are trying to say.

This has been a very satisfying discussion for me and I hope for others.

How does one define behavior — Joshs

Good question. Maybe "behavior" is the wrong word. I guess I mean any observable or measurable act or response that can be used to infer an internal state. Speech, conscious action, reflexive action, autonomic response, PET scan observation, and lots more.

Way back at the beginning I told @Jack Cummins I wanted to talk about the subconscious and unconscious. I am very aware that there are parts of my mind which are not normally connected to my experience of myself. Some of that is not really relevant to this discussion, e.g. the part of my mind that keeps me breathing without me paying attention. Other aspects are directly related to my behavior and experience. I'll start out, as is my wont, with some definitions:

Subconsciousness:

• Of or concerning the part of the mind of which one is not fully aware but which influences one's actions and feelings
• The totality of mental processes of which the individual is not aware; unreportable mental activities
• In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently in focal awareness.

Unconsciousness:

• The part of the mind which is inaccessible to the conscious mind but which affects behavior and emotions
• The part of mental life that does not ordinarily enter the individual's awareness yet may influence behavior and perception or be revealed (as in slips of the tongue or in dreams)
• The unconscious mind (or the unconscious) consists of the processes in the mind which occur automatically and are not available to introspection and include thought processes, memories, interests and motivations. Even though these processes exist well under the surface of conscious awareness, they are theorized to exert an effect on behavior.

They seem pretty similar, although the subconscious appears, in general, to be closer to the surface.

The subconscious or unconscious, whichever term we want to use, is important to my understanding of mind and human action. For me, much of human motivation and action comes from a place which is not available to my normal experience of myself. It comes into my awareness from somewhere else. I have described it as a spring where feelings and actions bubble to the surface from below, inside.

I don't want to sidetrack things with this, but I wanted to at least get it down on paper so to speak. No need for this to go any further unless people want to. If there is any further discussion, I'd like to keep it to the main thrust of this thread.

But some materialists seem to argue that because our minds - or the illusion of our minds - rise from solely from matter and are pre-determined by it, there really is no "question or mystery of consciouness" or, even, "real" consciousness or mind at all. How this follows, I don't exactly understand. — hwyl

I believe part of this - I don't think there is any mystery of consciousness. Consciousness is a behavior. I don't think that means that consciousness and mind don't exist. The experience is interesting and important, but I think it's more philosophy than science. Do I really believe that? ..... Yes, I think I do.

But consciousness is recognised by empirical evidence or observations, and more recently defined as a perceived/known capacity or potential - in self and in others. We commonly refer in these instances to an awareness of certain aspects in experience or what is evident, rather than to the faculty itself. — Possibility

I’m just thinking out loud here, and it may not make a lot of sense - but if we try to bring this back to T Clark’s discussion of the ‘experience’ aspect of consciousness, then perhaps the important point becomes how we understand this shift from awareness with to awareness of. — Possibility

I agree with the first statement. I'm trying to work out how to handle the subject of the second. I want to say that the experience is not central, since we mostly know consciousness or awareness by observing behavior. As I noted in an earlier post, there really is only one experience in my universe - mine. Anything else is inference. Maybe even anthropomorphism. Or maybe T Clarkpomorphism.

It sometimes seem to me that trying to parse the idea of consciousness is like trying to understand what Spinoza meant by God. — Tom Storm

All I know is that things are getting more complicated as this thread goes on. Which I guess isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm really enjoying this.

Well, I think they actually are; but given that it is your thread and you are so adamant, i'll let it go for now. — Banno

I was mostly just trying to stop the bicker-battle.

I've considerable sympathy for the method you wish to use, it being not dissimilar to that of J. L. Austin. — Banno

So the term carried with it a mutuality.

Consciousness is not private. — Banno

I think you're the first one in this thread to bring up the fact that consciousness is social. In a recent response I noted that the only way we know that other people have the experience of consciousness is by observing their behavior. That's not the same thing though.

Well, yes, an infant would not hold abstracted ideas regarding their innate awareness of self via which other is discerned. And if that is how one chooses to understand what "consciousness" refers to then infants hold no consciousness. — javra

Joshs has pointed out that my view of infant awareness may be a bit naive:

There has been a fair amount of work in recent years on what has been called a pre-reflective form of minimal self-awareness. Dan Zahavi has made this his central focus, but there is growing concensus that all experience presupposes some primitive sense of self. Infants have been shown to differentiate self from others. — Joshs

ns of "mine", as in what we linguistically address as my thirst, my pleasure or pain, my affinity to familiar voices, and so forth--this even if its associating these personal states of self to stimuli takes time. And, in so doing, I offer that an infant holds an ingrained awareness of self, hence a degree of self-awareness without which it (the infant) would literally perish. — javra

Joshs provided a link to Zahavi's papers. Here it is again

The following are all available free here:

https://ku-dk.academia.edu/DanZahavi

Zhavi: We in Me or Me in We? Collective Intentionality and Selfhood. March 2021 Journal of
Social Ontology

Zahavi: Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective.2005

Zahavi: ‘Is the Self a Social Construct’, Inquiry, Vol. 52, No. 6, 551–573,

Zahavi Consciousness and (minimal) selfhood: Getting clearer on for-me-ness and mineness
U. Kriegel (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness.
Oxford University Press, 2019 — Joshs

I'm going to take a look and see how it changes my thinking.

Take an animal, maybe a bat, maybe a lizard. They likely have experience, they are aware of things in the world: prey, food, shelter and the like. I am skeptical that such creatures would have "self awareness" as opposed to awareness.

What is added by self-awareness that is absent in experience? The apparent fact that one is aware that it is oneself that is having the experience, not another person nor another creature. — Manuel

Yes, this is at the heart of things for me, although I don't think that's true for some other people. If, as you noted before, experience is the important factor, how far down the ladder of neurological complexity does it go? If we go down far enough, it just becomes sentience. I think dogs probably experience things. Have you ever seen a dog dream? Do all mammals? Fish? I don't know. Ants? I guess not but I'm not sure.

Are you familiar with the original paper, which is here http://consc.net/papers/facing.html — Wayfarer

I read the paper. I'm not sure if I would change anything I've said based on what I read, but I do have some thoughts. First - Chalmers is talking about consciousness as an experience, which I did not emphasize in my OP or subsequent posts. @Manuel and @hwyl called me out on that. For Chalmers, the hard problem is experience - what it feels like.

Chalmers also listed what he called the easy problems of consciousness, generally those which can be solved even if they haven't been so far. I thought they were interesting and possibly helpful in our discussion. Here they are:

• the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli;
• the integration of information by a cognitive system;
• the reportability of mental states;
• the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
• the focus of attention;
• the deliberate control of behavior;
• the difference between wakefulness and sleep.

This is worth some thought. I must admit I'm not much interested in the experience of consciousness from a scientific or philosophical perspective. It doesn't seem that important to me. For me, consciousness is a behavior. We know it the way we know other human and animal behaviors - by observing it, including what the person says about it when that is available. There really is only one experience of consciousness in my universe - mine. Yes, yes. of course I believe other people experience it too, but that's because I've observed their behavior. This list from Chalmers identifies at least some of the behaviors related to consciousness that we can observe. He acknowledges that.

Thanks for pushing me to read the paper.

The following are all available free here: — Joshs

Thanks. I'll take a look.

The fallacy fallacy: The mistake of thinking/inferring that the conclusion of an argument is false because it contains a fallacy. — TheMadFool

This probably isn't what you were had in mind, but I think many of the arguments identified as logical fallacies are legitimate arguments. Example - appeal to authority. I believe that the general relativity is a correct method for describing gravity because Einstein and many other physicists say so.