Shit or get off the pot. — bert1

:smile:
You are right. I should stop wasting my time here and get on with something else more productive.
Bye. But @Banno is spot on...

:lol:

adjective
1 aware of and responding to one's surroundings: although I was in pain, I was conscious.

2 having knowledge of something: we are conscious of the extent of the problem.
• [in combination] concerned with or worried about a particular matter: they were growing increasingly security-conscious.

3 (of an action or feeling) deliberate and intentional: a conscious effort to walk properly.
• (of the mind or a thought) directly perceptible to and under the control of the person concerned: when you go to sleep it is only the conscious mind which shuts down.

All three are covered by the first aid test.

All three are covered by the first aid test. — Banno

OK, thanks. I'm not sure that any of them are, not clearly anyway. Possibly how one reads and interprets these is influenced by prior philosophical views.

Maybe. But keeping one eye on the practicalities might be useful as the conversation proceeds.

How'r the rock and tree getting on?

How'r the rock and tree getting on? — Banno

Pretty bad. Tree is responding to light, but not much else. You have to hit the rock pretty hard to get it to respond all at the moment.

Banno, do you think there are, as a matter of fact, distinct senses of 'consciousness'?

Sure. I just listed three.

OK, so for every sense of 'consciousness' (or at least the ones given in the Oxford online dictionary), you can tell to what degree x is conscious (from fully to not at all) by application of the first aid tests for assessing the 'level' of consciousness? Is that right?

Nope.

I'm afraid that I am having a problem with you wishing to narrow down the idea of consciousness to that of a first aid test. I am not saying that viewpoint isn't important. I have attended first aid training, so of course, it is an essential definition, but a medical one rather than a philosophical one. Thinkers within philosophy and other disciplines may use the term consciousness in differing ways, and surely, thinking about it should not be reduced to one way of seeing it.

Then your point is obscure to me. Anyone else understand Banno?

He just wants to deflate the conversation so as to move it into the territory he feels comfortable with - ‘plain language’ modern-analytic etc.

Me.

Damn, their on to me. Yep, nothing deep.

I'm afraid that I am having a problem with you wishing to narrow down the idea of consciousness to that of a first aid test. — Jack Cummins

That's not what he is doing.

I have attended first aid training, so of course, it is an essential definition, but a medical one rather than a philosophical one — Jack Cummins

It's not about a single definition but about seeing examples of it in practice. The people involved.
The whole human experience.

thinking about it should not be reduced to one way of seeing it. — Jack Cummins

Indeed.

a First Aid course involving people training people to look after people, it is a total picture of:

Consciousness
Self-consciousness
Awareness
Self-awareness
Sentience
Mind
— T Clark

Think about it... — Amity

keeping one eye on the practicalities might be useful as the conversation proceeds. — Banno

Yes. And the other eye/s on...?

And the other eye/s on...? — Amity

...whichever garden path we are being led up.

:smile:

So I’m curious, can anyone provide an instance where one is conscious of X without being aware of X? — javra

Gods (re: believers). Lies (re: believers). Other minds (ergo 'theory of mind'). My death....

I am not really opposing @Banno, because I can see that the medical idea of consciousness is extremely important. I have worked in hospitals and my working definition of assessing consciousness was the medical one and nothing else. This understanding of consciousness may be the best we have, but I am only saying that I don't think it is helpful to try to exclude all other usages of the term, because some people may be using it differently.

You don't seem to have read or understood my post.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/532572

I don't think it is helpful to try to exclude all other usages — Jack Cummins

Nor I.

Best, not only. It's the one that is clearest; the one with which no one will disagree...

Or not.

I wasn't just responding to your post, but the trail of the thread which does seem to be wishing to narrow down the use of the term. I thought that the OP was trying to explore the term rather than come up with the most commonplace definition.

:up:

Yes, perhaps we do agree. I can reassure that when I was working in a hospital and assessing patients I did not stand there contemplating what did consciousness mean.

:up:

It's a hard question. We can ask what is a heart. Some will say it's an organ that's used to pump blood around the body. That's one thing hearts do, maybe the main thing. But a definition of what a heart is doesn't tell us much about actual hearts.

Maybe consciousness is the same thing. It's something that the brain does. It's unlikely that it's even the "main" thing the brain does, but its one of its more surprising properties. And it's likely the greatest gift we've gotten from nature.

I see why you may want to clarify these terms. I'm not sure how useful it's going to be. The simpler the definition the better. Consciousness can be said to be awareness. Self consciousness means awareness of one's being aware. And so on. But defining a term says little about the phenomenon.

I see why you may want to clarify these terms. I'm not sure how useful it's going to be — Manuel

I've rarely known a time when clarifying a term wasn't useful to someone. People often take consciousness for granted - might be useful to kick it around for a bit.

Defining the hard problem of consciousness is interesting because it remains a key matter in discussions of physicalism, god and mysticism.

I wasn't just responding to your post, but the trail of the thread which does seem to be wishing to narrow down the use of the term. I thought that the OP was trying to explore the term rather than come up with the most commonplace definition. — Jack Cummins

I think the thread is going well. I don't see any wish to narrow down the use of the term.
Yes, it is an exploration.

From the OP:

Part of the problem is that the words in my list have other meanings. Examples:

When I wake from a coma, I become conscious
When I stop daydreaming, I become aware
When I feel shy and embarrassed, I am self-consciousness

I don’t mind discussing other meanings or shades of meaning, but generally only with the goal of addressing ambiguity. — T Clark

I think that @Banno has offered 'The First Aid course' as an example where all aspects of the meaning of 'consciousness' can be explored. That is, if there is the imagination to consider it from another angle...to see the different types and nature of 'consciousness' as arising and working in, through and around people...

It's a fine line between clarifying a concept and being a slave to the definition you've given. As in, if I say consciousness is to be defined as what-it's-like to be something and someone replies "that's no good, you can't be a rock. Also, can you tell me what it's like to be a bat?" Then we simply get stuck in discussing the definition as opposed to the phenomena.

A definition can be helpful but one has to be careful here.

Defining the hard problem of consciousness is interesting because it remains a key matter in discussions of physicalism, god and mysticism. — Tom Storm

Well, I'm going to sound like a broken record but, I think the so called "hard problem" is an example of being wed too strongly to a mistaken notion: that consciousness is the hard problem. There are many hard problems.

As for the other topics, yes I agree, consciousness is important for them.

The trouble with definitions like “consciousness”, is that they rely on words and the trouble with words is that they are sounds which point to things which are not sounds. We all know what consciousness “is” because we all experience it (supposedly), but the problem with experience, is that experience is subjective and may not be conveyed to others, outside of the use of abstract language. We may “imagine” how someone feels or thinks, but we may never “know” for sure. Hence the “hard” problem.