How do you know that what you're calling an 'experience' is, in fact, anything at all. — Isaac

This isn’t exactly Descartes’ argument of “I think, therefore I am”, but in seeking to provide an answer to the question: The only reason one would know one thinks is due to one’s experience of engaging in thoughts – i.e., due to one’s conscious awareness of the thoughts one thinks. A resulting Cartesian-like proportion of “I am when I am aware of anything” to me seems to be of a very strong certainty – notably, far stronger than the certainty with which physicalism, dualism, or panpsychism can be either affirmed or denied.

Any ontology which needs or seeks to eliminate the occurrence of experiences in order to be cogent will first need to evidence to me, either logically or experientially, that me being while I am aware is in fact a falsity – including the falsity of me being while aware of the evidence that is so presented. But then, if I am aware of this evidence and thereby experience it, then I am that which experiences the presentation of this evidence – which in turn nullifies the evidence against my so being. This, thereby, makes any such ontology false due to its logically contradicting the reality of experience / awareness / subjectivity / consciousness / sentience. And while this argument can only work in first-person, it seems to me to hold equal validity to all other beings were they to apply it in their own first-person manner. If you think I'm wrong, please explain why.

This just stipulated argument doesn’t imply that experiences are things, nor that that which experiences is/are thing(s); it simply offers a superlatively strong, if at all fallible, certainty that experiences occur for as long as aware beings are.

The aforementioned is how I know that experiences occur.

A question in turn: Is not all evidence something which one or more people either directly or indirectly experience and are thereby aware of? And don’t we know about neural firings and related phenomena due to such evidence?

The only reason one would know one thinks is due to one’s experience of engaging in thoughts — javra

I'm not sure how. Thoughts are a publicly defined concept. A child has no idea what 'thoughts' are until they are introduced to the term, so you'd need at least two reasons; 1) having an experience of thoughts, and 2) being embedded in a culture which talks about such things.

“I am when I am aware of anything” to me seems to be of a very strong certainty — javra

But what does being 'aware' of something entail? That's part of what I don't seem to be able to get out of anyone. Is it just a fundamental belief for you, that there's this indescribable thing called 'being aware'? For me, I can break down my experience of, say, drinking a cup of tea, into sensations, the presumed cause, memories, desires, converting a lot of this mentally into words and 3D models. Maybe I even experience experiencing those things. But that can just be broken down into more sensations, memories, desires, words, models... I never seem to run out and end up with something fundamental, indivisible.

Any ontology which needs or seeks to eliminate the occurrence of experiences in order to be cogent will first need to evidence to me, either logically or experientially, that me being while I am aware is in fact a falsity – including the falsity of me being while aware of the evidence that is so presented. But then, if I am aware of this evidence and thereby experience it, then I am that which experiences the presentation of this evidence – which in turn nullifies the evidence against my so being. — javra

This all hinges on the idea that awareness is a simple, an indivisible event or property. I don't think it is. I think what we call 'awareness' is a collective term for the mental processes which go on in response to some stimuli. That's how it feels to me anyway.

Is not all evidence something which one or more people either directly or indirectly experience and are thereby aware of? And don’t we know about neural firings and related phenomena due to such evidence? — javra

Yes, I think it must be. I'm not sure how that prevents us from postulating a model for how it works based on the presumption that those experiences have real-world correlates.

How do you know that what you're calling an 'experience' is, in fact, anything at all. — Isaac

So the very thing youre using to write this and refute experience yourself and do all you do in your waking life doesnt exist :roll: ? Join @bongo furys party. You both can talk about the absurd fantasy how you dont really experience anything while you are in fact experiencing. No one is writing these words either. But that last sentence is self refuting just like that argument.

But what does being 'aware' of something entail? That's part of what I don't seem to be able to get out of anyone. Is it just a fundamental belief for you, that there's this indescribable thing called 'being aware'? For me, I can break down my experience of, say, drinking a cup of tea, into sensations, the presumed cause, memories, desires, converting a lot of this mentally into words and 3D models. Maybe I even experience experiencing those things. But that can just be broken down into more sensations, memories, desires, words, models... I never seem to run out and end up with something fundamental, indivisible. — Isaac

Those things you describe all encompass experiential phenomena. It doesnt have to be one kind of thing. You are on the mind aspect of the the divide when referring to those things.

Those things you describe all encompass experiential phenomena. — schopenhauer1

Well each of those things are completely non-mysterious activities of the brain. The whole 'what it's like' awareness mystery dissolves if you break down what constitutes an experience into its component parts. Light hits my eyes, the message is relayed to my occipital cortex, several layers of inference calculation take place, a message gets sent to other parts of the brain dealing with modelling, sensation, interoception etc. Each infers a likely cause of the input by way of selecting an output to send on. Eventually some behaviour results, alters the environment and the process starts again. Where's the mystery there?

So it’s known, I uphold that consciousness is causally associated with organic substrates of matter, and furthermore subscribe to a modified bundle theory of mind. Nevertheless, I’m not here posting in relation to this but in relation the eliminativist tendency against the reality of experience.

A child has no idea what 'thoughts' are until they are introduced to the term, so you'd need at least two reasons; 1) having an experience of thoughts, and 2) being embedded in a culture which talks about such things. — Isaac

Sure, (1) is not a sufficient reason but it is a necessary reason.

“I am when I am aware of anything” to me seems to be of a very strong certainty — javra

But what does being 'aware' of something entail? That's part of what I don't seem to be able to get out of anyone. Is it just a fundamental belief for you, that there's this indescribable thing called 'being aware'? — Isaac

All that the statement entails at this juncture is that the proposition “awareness is real (for as long as aware beings are)” can be made with a greater certainty than all propositions accounting for how or why this is so, as well as all propositions contradicting it being so. Hence, for me, it’s not a fundamental axiomatic belief, but a fundamental known regarding what is. The "how is it so" is tangential to its so being.

This all hinges on the idea that awareness is a simple, an indivisible event or property. I don't think it is. I think what we call 'awareness' is a collective term for the mental processes which go on in response to some stimuli. That's how it feels to me anyway. — Isaac

I’m having difficulty understanding this. If you mean in the sense of “a first-person point-of-view cannot hold differing first-person points-of-view at the same time and in the same respect (e.g., cannot both look right and look left at the same time and in the same way)”, then yes, I deem awareness to be a unitary and thereby indivisible event. I may be simultaneously aware of different givens but my awareness of these remains unified.

Explanations of how awareness comes about, regardless of what they may be, cannot then nullify the just mentioned reality. They can only either be in accordance to it or in contradiction to it.

Yes, there are different modalities of awareness. Awareness of a seen tree is not the same as awareness of the generalized idea of (the concept of) tree. But in all cases known to us a first person point of view cognizes, i.e., takes notice of, that which it is aware of.

If you’re experiences are different, how are they so?

I'm not sure how that prevents us from postulating a model for how it works based on the presumption that those experiences have real-world correlates. — Isaac

What I’ve expressed in no way prevents us from so postulating. It does, however, entail that everything we postulate and all evidence with which it is postulated will itself be necessarily experienced by one or more aware beings. Again, this entails that the reality of experience is a fundamental known: succinctly expressed, a reality of greater certainty than our postulations regarding how it comes to be.

Hidden Cartesian Theater..look it up..but ill explain later..

Just wanted to say @bert1 has been doing a great job in this thread.

Also to add, on my own account of panpsychism, mentality or experience isn’t properly speaking a property of things; rather, it’s a different perspective on the same ordinary physical things, a perspective that can be taken with regards to anything, not just humans, though there’s often little point to taking it for many things.

It’s sort of a combination of two kinds of bundle theory. Objects are bundles of properties. All those properties are empirical. To be empirical means they can be experienced. Phenomenal consciousness is just a bundle of experiences. For a thing to be red is just for it to be disposed to do something (emit photons) to us that provokes the experience of red in us, and both its being objectively red and our subjective experience of its redness are the same event, the interaction between us and the thing. The phenomenal experience is just the subjective perspective on that event, while the physical behavior (of doing the thing that constitutes looking red) is the objective perspective on that event.

To say that all things have phenomenal experiences is thus similar (if not identical) to saying all things are quantum mechanical “observers”: it just means they are subject to interactions with other things, receiving information from those things (which is the same thing as interacting with them). But neither quantum mechanical “observation” nor phenomenal “consciousness” really mean the substantive ordinary things we mean by those words day-to-day. Those ordinary meanings are all about what you DO with the information / in response to the interaction, and there are important functional differences between humans and e.g. rocks in that respect, which differences constitute ACCESS conscious, which is really the more important subject.

Well each of those things are completely non-mysterious activities of the brain. The whole 'what it's like' awareness mystery dissolves if you break down what constitutes an experience into its component parts. Light hits my eyes, the message is relayed to my occipital cortex, several layers of inference calculation take place, a message gets sent to other parts of the brain dealing with modelling, sensation, interoception etc. Each infers a likely cause of the input by way of selecting an output to send on. Eventually some behaviour results, alters the environment and the process starts again. Where's the mystery there? — Isaac

There are a couple things off here:
1) The homunculus problem (a type of circular reasoning in philosophy of mind).

The homunculus argument is a fallacy whereby a concept is explained in terms of the concept itself, recursively, without first defining or explaining the original concept. This fallacy arises most commonly in the theory of vision. One may explain human vision by noting that light from the outside world forms an image on the retinas in the eyes and something (or someone) in the brain looks at these images as if they are images on a movie screen (this theory of vision is sometimes termed the theory of the Cartesian theater: it is most associated, nowadays, with the psychologist David Marr). The question arises as to the nature of this internal viewer. The assumption here is that there is a "little man" or "homunculus" inside the brain "looking at" the movie.

The reason why this is a fallacy may be understood by asking how the homunculus "sees" the internal movie. The obvious answer is that there is another homunculus inside the first homunculus's "head" or "brain" looking at this "movie". But that raises the question of how this homunculus sees the "outside world". To answer that seems to require positing another homunculus inside this second homunculus's head, and so forth. In other words, a situation of infinite regress is created. The problem with the homunculus argument is that it tries to account for a phenomenon in terms of the very phenomenon that it is supposed to explain.[1] — Homunculus Argument article from Wikipedia

In other word, there is "somewhere" this comes together. You can push it back, but at some point it is there and at some point it isn't. When this point happens, what is this?

At some point there is experiential processes. Why should physical processes be this? That is the question. You keep going back to physical things without getting at it.

Also, you may be making several category errors when you say "inference calculation", and "modelling".

Overall, the problem with your argument seems to be assuming the mental processes and states somewhere in there.

OK, so what is the definition of 'conciousness' then, if not behaviour?
— Isaac

Sentience, awareness, the capacity to feel, the capacity to experience. — bert1

Perhaps you can help me on this? On the one hand, I feel your answer is intuitively correct, and it surprises me so many people continue to state that behavioralism actually defines experience. Even psychologists state behavioralism is a black-box model.

On the other hand, when I start thinking something intuitively right, after so many decades of learning how wrong intuitions can be, I get suspicious Im missing something and I dont know what.

In other word, there is "somewhere" this comes together. — schopenhauer1

What comes together?

At some point there is experiential processes. — schopenhauer1

Repeating it doesn't make it so. I've just explained how what you're calling 'experiential processes' can easily be thought of as a series of mental activities each of which is not only explicable in terms of neural activity, but is watchable and even in rare cases transferable directly to another mind or cluster of neural cells. You still haven't explained what it is about this 'step' that different from any other step in the explanatory process. All explanations are of the form A causes B and within that one can ask "but how does A cause B?" and expect a more detailed explanation, in the form A causes Bi, then Bii...and so on.

This is no different. Neural activity causes the sensation of awareness. The more detailed explanation is that inputs from sensory and interioception nerve endings, trigger both positive and repressive feedback loops within neural circuits to build various models whose output either forms the input of some higher level model, or some behaviour. The behaviour and it's effect them become the input and the cycle starts again - part of the this modelling is what we call things like logging data to memory, forming sentences, initiating physiological changes and initiating action.

you may be making several category errors when you say "inference calculation", and "modelling". — schopenhauer1

Well if I 'may be' then you should be able to expand on that, yes?

Awareness isn't a sensation.

I have..you are constantly discussing physical behaviors hoping this is eqivalent to "green" but you havent actually told me how this is green rather than just you know optical nerve sending signals to coritical nerves, etc.

these behaviours are not the definition (unless you are a behaviourist) of thoughts and experiences.
— bert1

Right. So why not adopt a behaviourist position as the simplest model? — Isaac

Sorry, I made a mistake here which is worth correcting as it is confusing otherwise. A good behaviourist would NOT define consciousness as behaviour, as that would be begging the question. The behaviourist would accept the agreed definition (whatever that is) and say that the best theory of this phenomenon is to equate it to behaviour, or tendencies to behave. In this case, the behaviourist theory of consciousness, subjectivity, awareness etc (if they accepted that concept with it synonyms), would be just that being aware is nothing other than a tendency to behave in such-and-such way. (Sorry if that's not very good, I'm not a behaviourist.)

So, if a good behaviourist doesn't beg the question by messing with the definition, shouldn't substance dualists, panpsychists and anyone else with a theory of consciousness also not build their theory into their definition? Absolutely not, on pain of being horrible hypocrites.

The trouble is, if we start with a particular definition, it may very well make one theory much more tenable than another. And I think that's the case with the concept of consciousness. (I think a concept and the meaning of a word are more or less the same thing in this context). And a definition that appeals to one's own subjectivity that does not refer to any observable function or behaviour at all, does indeed prejudice the theory in favour of some kind of non-reductivist or non-emergentist position. All I can say is that's not my fault! Definitions are what they are. I didn't invent the concept of subjectivity just so I could be a panpsychist. One way theorists resist intuitive dualisms, panpsychisms and other non-reductive theories is to attack the definition. Perhaps saying we have got the definition wrong, or we shouldn't use words in ways that suggest unacceptable conclusions: words like 'consciousness' and 'awareness' denote folk-concepts which should be abandoned, much like how 'life' referring to 'elan vital' (or some kind of inner soul or spirit) is outdated, and now 'life' should be thought of as nothing other than a set of observable behaviours and functions. That's been partially successful with the word 'life', it largely does now mean that set of behaviours, depending on who you talk to. I wonder if 'consciousness' will go the same way.

I think it’s important in many philosophical contexts not to argue over what the “correct” definition is, but to explore the relevant questions about each definition as separate questions.

In that light, I see phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness not as two different ways of thinking about the same thing, but two separate things. Access consciousness is trivially accounted for by functionalism, and is weakly emergent from simpler mechanical functions. Phenomenal consciousness is not a different take on that same thing, but a different thing entirely, and it is with regards to that only that I am a panpsychist.

Everything has phenomenal consciousness, it doesn’t emerge from anything that doesn’t have it, and it doesn’t just not exist, though it’s pretty trivial and unimportant.

Only some things have access consciousness, which emerges from simpler functions that are not access conscious in a philosophically trivial way, although the end product of that holds all the interesting important details about consciousness as we usually mean it.

A good behaviourist would NOT define consciousness as behaviour, as that would be begging the question. — bert1

Right.. I was pointing out to @Isaac the circular reasoning explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument

Also this is a short definition here:
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Homunculus-Fallacy

Perhaps you can help me on this? On the one hand, I feel your answer is intuitively correct, and it surprises me so many people continue to state that behavioralism actually defines experience. Even psychologists state behavioralism is a black-box model.

On the other hand, when I start thinking something intuitively right, after so many decades of learning how wrong intuitions can be, I get suspicious Im missing something and I dont know what. — ernestm

I'll try. Clearly many intuitions, often derived from introspection, do turn out to be wrong. For example:

I'm really angry with my wife because she didn't fill the car up with petrol because she is inconsiderate and didn't care that I needed to do a long drive in a hurry.

This contains a lot of content. It could pretty much all be wrong. His wife may have been in a hurry herself and was trying to get the car back in time. It might be that she did fill the car up with petrol but the fuel gauge is faulty. It might be that he isn't really angry with anything, he is hungry, and this is making him cranky. Or he is angry about something else and blaming his wife. Etc etc. In general, the more content an intuition has, the more susceptible it is to mistakes. So lets remove some of the content, or make the content more general and less specific:

I'm really angry about the car not having a full tank.

It could still be wrong, but there's less things to be wrong about, and therefore it's more reliable as a piece of introspection. Lets go further:

I'm not feeling right about something.

This is really general, and highly unlikely to be a mistake. If you feel unsettled in some way, well, you feel unsettled in some way.

Remove as much content as possible, and we end up with maximally reliable introspections, things like:

I feel something
or
Sometimes something happens in my mind
or
I sense something
or
I am having an experience
or
There is something it is like to be me

This is pretty much the introspection I was trying to get at when offering a definition in terms of attending to one's own subjectivity. It seems to me that this is essentially infallible. You can't be mistaken about these things, as they are devoid of anything to be wrong. So while some intuitions are most certainly fallible, this particular one we appeal to to define 'consciousness' is not one of them.

EDIT: an NDE would have been a better example to use.

↪bert1 I think it’s important in many philosophical contexts not to argue over what the “correct” definition is, but to explore the relevant questions about each definition as separate questions. — Pfhorrest

I heartily agree. Sometimes it's really hard to get people to accept that there are different definitions, and even if you do, to get them to talk about the one you want them to talk about.

In that light, I see phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness not as two different ways of thinking about the same thing, but two separate things. Access consciousness is trivially accounted for by functionalism, and is weakly emergent from simpler mechanical functions. Phenomenal consciousness is not a different take on that same thing, but a different thing entirely, and it is with regards to that only that I am a panpsychist. — Pfhorrest

Yes, I think I agree with you. I think functionalism may well be a good way to account for the content of consciousness, and what our identity is. When people talk about 'losing consciousness' due to head malfunction what has disappeared is not actually consciousness, but content and identity.

Everything has phenomenal consciousness, it doesn’t emerge from anything that doesn’t have it, and it doesn’t just not exist, though it’s pretty trivial and unimportant. — Pfhorrest

I know what you mean, but in a way it is supremely important. If there were no consciousness, it might be the case that nothing at all would ever happen, and there could be no function. I do what I do because of how I feel. If that is extrapolated all the way down, as some panpsychists will want to do, that means substance does what it does because of how it feels. And we can be thankful that consciousness is present at that fundamental level in order that we have the world that we have (if indeed we want it). Without consciousness, nothing could matter. Nothing would be important.

A good behaviourist would NOT define consciousness as behaviour, as that would be begging the question.
— bert1

Right.. I was pointing out to Isaac the circular reasoning explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument — schopenhauer1

That's interesting, I hadn't thought of the homunculus fallacy as being identical to begging the question, but maybe it is.

Just wanted to say bert1 has been doing a great job in this thread. — Pfhorrest

Thank you!

I have to say, bert1 is doing a good job laying out the problems and basically point to his arguments. — schopenhauer1

Thank you!

It has been so long since I have felt this appreciated. My father used to politely look at my childhood paintings and compliment them. Unfortunately he fell through the ice over the river Cam while jumping up and down and showing off. I watched his body slowly shut down as he slid under the ice. He was still grinning like a buffoon even as he clutched vainly at the slippery edges, trying to pretend it was all part of the act. Hmm. I can't really respond appropriately to people being nice to me. I have to make it all weird.

EDIT: For the avoidance of doubt and any embarrassment (apart from my own), that story about my dad is totally untrue. My social skills are desperately bad.

EDIT 2: I've just realised I might be likening my fans to buffoons in the above story. That was not my intention in the slightest. This is getting worse.

Here I get stuck. How do I know I've successfully attended to this 'awareness of the object' if I don't know what it is I'm looking for? I could be attending to absolutely anything, how do I know it's an 'awareness of the object'? I can convert the properties of the object into words, recall images of similar objects, I get a desire to act sometimes (if the object is desirable or offensive), sometimes I perceive changes in my physiology in response to it. Pretty much all of these things can also be observed (in a rudimentary way) in the brain. I'm not getting anything particularly difficult to explain yet. Is any of that what you're calling 'awareness'? — Isaac

I don't think so. This is a huge difficulty that impedes conversations about consciousness - agreeing what the subject of enquiry is. My reply to @ernestm might help, not sure.

When we interfere in any way with one we get a corresponding effect in the other. It's not conclusive but I think it's pretty sound theory as to why we might consider the two are the same. It's either that they're the same, or that they're linked intricately.

The tight correlations would indeed be neatly explained by their being identical. This is what Block and Pfhorrest are calling 'access consciousness' though, rather than 'phenomenal consciousness' which is what I'm trying to talk about, and what panpsychism is a theory of.

The former theory can exist within the rest of science, the latter requires a whole universe of forms, concepts and features which would otherwise not be required. What would possibly stop us from presuming the simpler explanation for now?

Because it's not a theory of phenomenal consciousness. I should probably expand on that, but I'm too tired tonight. Briefly, the difficulty is caused by two things (in my view - and I don't know if I'm correctly guessing your view or not, sorry if I've got it wrong): (1) the idea of 'consciousness' as a collective noun to cover lots of different examples, tasting an apple, making an inference, feeling sad, and so on, and (2) that brain function is both necessary and sufficient for any one of these, so for example, whenever a certain brain function happens, we taste apple, and whenever we taste apple, that brain function is happening. Therefore, tasting an apple just is that brain function, that's the obvious straightforward conclusion to draw. And that's the same with any example under the collective noun 'consciousness'. Therefore, it's reasonable to generalise and say that consciousness is just the name we give to these kinds of brain function. All straightforward and extremely persuasive. What's wrong with it is that 'consciousness', in the phenomenal sense, is not a collective noun in this way. And that also undermines the validity of the generalisation. I'll try and explain it better another day.

Things seem much different when you realize your consciousness in the present can interact with people in the past.

Light hits my eyes, the message is relayed to my occipital cortex, several layers of inference calculation take place, a message gets sent to other parts of the brain dealing with modelling, sensation, interoception etc. Each infers a likely cause of the input by way of selecting an output to send on. Eventually some behaviour results, alters the environment and the process starts again. Where's the mystery there? — Isaac

That's a whole lot of inferring going on, which you claim is required for, and as such, is necessarily prior to conscious experience. But only conscious minds infer. So how is this possible? How can you describe simple sensation as a process involving multiple instances of inferring, when inferring is a process of reasoning carried out by a mind?

I'll try and explain it better another day. — bert1

I'm taking a little break from the forum for a while, but I would certainly read (if not respond to) such an explanation when you have the time. Just to clarify though as there seems to be some confusion from other respondents - I'm not looking for a critique of my position. I'm quite happy with it, I'm well aware that there are alternative positions and I'm also well aware that there are arguments against them, this has all been played out by our epistemic peers (if not epistemic superiors) in the papers and books on the philosophy of mind. As yet it remains unsettled, so I doubt reference to a Wikipedia article or a three paragraph post by any internet forum member is going to resolve it to the extent that I'm compelled to change my mind.

What I'm really interested in is how you personally have arrived at your belief. As @javra answered earlier "for me, it’s not a fundamental axiomatic belief, but a fundamental known regarding what is. The "how is it so" is tangential to its so being.". That's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Is it axiomatic for you or is it derived from some other belief? How certain are you of it? etc. I may have poked about a bit to get at the meat of your beliefs, but it's those I'm interested in, not the persuasion either way. If that's OK with you.

This distinction @Pfhorrest made of 'phenomenal consciousness' seems very useful to this end. It's exactly that that I want to understand your beliefs about. It's not a distinction which makes any sense to me, not something distinct which requires a name, so I'd like to know how it seems that way to you. As I said, I shan't reply, but I will read with interest at some point.

This distinction Pfhorrest made of 'phenomenal consciousness' seems very useful to this end. It's exactly that that I want to understand your beliefs about. It's not a distinction which makes any sense to me, not something distinct which requires a name, — Isaac

For my part, I think in a completely sane world we wouldn't need a name for it, because phenomenal consciousness is a trivial thing about which there isn't really much to say. The only reason to name it at all is because, in the existing historical arguments about philosophy of mind, it's become clear that people are conflating two different things, and that conflation is the source of much confusion. Separate the two things, and it becomes clear that one is a trivial philosophical non-problem (yeah, there's a first person perspective of anything, so what?), and the other becomes an interesting non-philosophical problem (for psychologists, neuroscientists, AI engineers, etc, to work on).

FWIW I think that most if not all philosophical progress is made in this way. Sort out the different questions that are all mistakenly conflated as one question, figure out what you want an answer to each of them for, what would count as an answer, how to go about figuring one out, etc, and you end up with several different questions that are either trivial or no longer philosophical. The philosophical work was all in getting to that point where everything that isn't a non-philosophical question is rendered trivial, and special sciences can take over.

(For instance, I think similarly about free will. Incompatibilists and compatibilists are talking about two different things. The kind of thing incompatibilists are on about is trivial; electrons "have free will" of the kind they're on about, and that doesn't really mean anything as significant as it sounds. But the kind compatibilists are talking about, while much less philosophically "deep" in a way, is much more interesting, in that special sciences can then go on to do interesting empirical investigations about it. Philosophy's place is in elucidating that difference.)

The most neglected and fundamental aspect of consciousness is the experiencer/observer/self, the thing being subject to experience. I don't think consciousness can exist without a subject and so I think that limits what kind of things could be conscious.

Entities with perceptual apparatus such as eyes and ears seem more plausible candidates for being conscious. Some things only exist in consciousness such as pain because it doesn't make sense to say pain is existent with no one conscious of it.

At this stage I don't think we know anything about consciousness and are groping in the dark.

I don't think consciousness can exist without a subject and so I think that limits what kind of things could be conscious. — Andrew4Handel

What is to stop considering any thing as the subject?

That’s basically the thesis of panpsychism: all objects are also subjects.

Objects from rocks to humans vary wildly in their behaviors, though, so of course subjects from rocks to humans vary wildly in their experiences, and the experience of a rock is no more interesting than its behavior.

I don't see any reason to grant subject to experience status to everything.

How would you define a thing in this case? Is every atom in my body having seperate experiences to me?

Experiences are usually linked to a perceptual mechanism like eyes and ears and the nerves on the skin for touch so it is not clear how a rock could have an experience.

On a dualist perspective souls or minds interact with the brain to receive sensory data. It is not clear where experience could be had without nervous systems.

I don't think that interactions between inanimate objects need to or do invoke subjectivity.

The atoms don’t have separate experiences; their experiences are tiny parts of your experience, just like their behaviors are a tiny part of your behavior.

The rest of what you’re talking about are behavioral details, which then correspond to experiential details. The experience of something without a nervous system is not much to speak of. Consciousness proper — ACCESS consciousness— is a reflexive (self-oriented) behavior and correspondingly, self-experience, self-awareness.

This thread does not strike its participants as a misuse of language?

Here's a scale for assessing consciousness...

The AVPU scale has four possible outcomes for recording (as opposed to the 13 possible outcomes on the Glasgow Coma Scale). The assessor should always work from best (A) to worst (U) to avoid unnecessary tests on patients who are clearly conscious. The four possible recordable outcomes are:[2]

Alert: The patient is fully awake (although not necessarily oriented). This patient will have spontaneously open eyes, will respond to voice (although may be confused) and will have bodily motor function.
Verbal: The patient makes some kind of response when you talk to them, which could be in any of the three component measures of eyes, voice or motor - e.g. patient's eyes open on being asked "Are you OK?". The response could be as little as a grunt, moan, or slight move of a limb when prompted by the voice of the rescuer.
Pain: The patient makes a response on any of the three component measures on the application of pain stimulus, such as a central pain stimulus like a sternal rub or a peripheral stimulus such as squeezing the fingers. A patient with some level of consciousness (a fully conscious patient would not require a pain stimulus) may respond by using their voice, moving their eyes, or moving part of their body (including abnormal posturing).
Unresponsive: Sometimes seen noted as 'unconscious', this outcome is recorded if the patient does not give any eye, voice or motor response to voice or pain.

Where do atoms rate?

Are you going to classify their participation in, say, oxidation, as proof of their responsiveness to stimuli?

You sure 'bout that?

Or is this thread a neat example of philosophy as language on holiday?