It sorta goes with the OP. — Banno
Do you find this "public" definition of consciousness deficient/incorrect/misleading — TheMadFool
Returning to Wittgenstein's beetle in a box, none of the people in this scenario can be in error about there being something in the box - this somethingness is what the word "consciousness" refers to. As such "consciousness", the word, lacks details necessary to enable a precise conception of what it actually is. — TheMadFool
You seem to have a very narrow definition of consciousness. — schopenhauer1
f consciousness is a private somethingness (some beetle in the box), then we can't even check whether we have the same (private) meaning 'in mind' when we use the word 'consciousness.'
If meaning is private, conversation is pointless.
If meaning (a kind of somethingness) is private and yet we are uncritically confident that mental experiences are the same for all, why is that?
Is it because other humans also have human faces? Because our public doings are carefully synchronized? Because humans respond complexly to their environment?
Is a dandelion "not conscious" because we have checked (forgetting for a moment that we can't even know what agreement would mean here, giving the assumptions being challenged)?
Or just because it doesn't respond to its environment (including other dandelions) in a sufficiently complex way?
But what if we zoom in and consider the complicated coding of its DNA? Aren't individual cells staggeringly complex?
I'm not claiming that plants are conscious (or that they aren't).
The issue is figuring out what we are even talking about. — Yellow Horse
"And consciousness, however small, is an illegitimate birth in
any philosophy that starts without it and yet professes to explain all facts by continuous evolution._______________________________________________________________________ If evolution is to work smoothly, consciousness in some
shape must have been present at the very origins of things." -William James
William James believed in Pan-psychism just as many modern scientists believe in Pan-psychism.
Are there any flaws in the logic of this quote? — turkeyMan
Why do you think consciousness is different from nearly all other properties such that it cannot reasonably be emergent? — bert1
Metaphysics is where you make stuff up because you don't know what's going on. It's not compulsory. One can simply admit to not knowing. — Banno
existence exists — Kev
So how do you know other people are conscious? You relate to them, and make the assumption, right? So why isn't that valid when taken to simpler life forms? — Kev
Metaphysics is where you make stuff up because you don't know what's going on. It's not compulsory. One can simply admit to not knowing. — Banno
Even when it convinces you that rocks are conscious? I'm not so sure...Nothing wrong with speculative metaphysics. — schopenhauer1
It's just Spike Milligan, Lewis Carrol, Edward Lear, are better at nonsense than Kant or your namesake. :razz: — Banno
a) Presumably you are not a mind/body dualist... — schopenhauer1
b) Objects relate to each other in some way that isn't Banno's perceptions of how other objects relate to each other. — schopenhauer1
I've long argued that the distinction is misleading. — Banno
I'm not sure what the word "perception" is doing there. It's unclear what you are claiming, so I'm not sure if I agree, disagree, or defer. — Banno
there's something problematic in asserting or denying a 'consciousness' whose role in the game is to point at what can never be checked (in the 'purity' of its concept, as ineffable.) — Yellow Horse
I don't deny this somethingness. — Yellow Horse
If consciousness is a private somethingness (some beetle in the box), then we can't even check whether we have the same (private) meaning 'in mind' when we use the word 'consciousness — Yellow Horse
The issue is figuring out what we are even talking about — Yellow Horse
being just a language game, it too is restricted, — TheMadFool
Being a language game is not a bad thing... — Banno
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