If you're trying to suggest that all identities are identical aside from being in different locales inhabiting different bodies, you're sorely mistaken. — neonspectraltoast

That's one possibility, I'm not sure it's the right one and I'm not sure it actually answers the OP even if it is right. But I'm interested in why you think this could not be the case.

You seem to know what you are - a bert1 - but are ignorant of why you are bert1? Is that not a question about causation? — Harry Hindu

Yes, I think it might be. But not about the causation of bert1 - that is independent of the question of why I am bert 1, that is to say, why an I looking out of bert1's eyes and not, say Banno's. One could rephrase to say "What caused me to be bert1 rather than someone else."

You're all honestly confused about why you don't identify as other people...? — neonspectraltoast

I'm not sure why I am bert1 rather than someone else

Hah! Well, that would be a bonus, but it is not the intention. This stuff fries my brain, I find it very hard to think about. I think this is the hard end of philosophy, because we can't think objectively about this, we have to include our point of view, which we are not used to doing, or at least I'm not. I'm still trying to get to grips with Banno's post, and one thing I notice about it is that it is all third person (the first-person speech is reported in the third person). I think the video I linked to by Stephen Priest really sets out the idea as clearly as can be done, and I recommend having a look. If indeed that idea is the same as the one the OP wants us to talk about. Priest thinks it is an extraordinary fact that out of all the billions of people one of them is extremely peculiar in that it has the absolutely unique property of being me. Banno thinks this is just a matter of grammar. I don't think it is. It's not a matter of grammar that I can see everyone's face except my own.

Should qualia on that definition be regarded as consciousness? — Graeme M

I don't think so, no. Consciousness is an essential prerequisite for an experience. If I'm conscious, it means I'm capable of experience. Exactly what I experience is not yet determined merely by the fact of my being conscious. What I experience are the qualia, and these change. We can't identify consciousness and qualia because qualia change and consciousness doesn't. We are conscious of one thing, then another, then another. The content changes, the consciousness doesn't. This seems really obvious to me but it seems other people's intuitions on this are quite different to mine, so much so that it is hard to have a conversation and know we are talking about the same ideas. Consciousness is that property by virtue of which I am able to have experiences. Consciousness is that which all qualia and experiences have in common, by virtue of which they have a felt character.

I don't know if a dictionary will help, but it might. Lets take a look at the first two senses of 'consciousness' on dictionary.com:

1) the state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.

2) the thoughts and feelings, collectively, of an individual or of an aggregate of people: — dictionary.com

When I'm talking about consciousness, I mean sense 1, and this is what I believe most panpsychists and people like Chalmers who go on about the hard problem mean. The focus of definition 1 is on the awareness, not what one is aware of. There is a list of categories of content, but only to indicate that is the kind of thing that one's awareness is often aware of.

It is possible to talk about consciousness in sense 2, we refer to someone's consciousness as the totality of the contents of their conscious mind. In this definition, the focus is on the content of awareness, not on the awareness of content.

There's other senses as well, like the awake/unconscious distinction. Some like Banno think that covers the concept adequately. I just don't think it is the sense that most philosophers of mind use. I think philosophers typically are using 'consciousness' in sense 1 or 2.

Does that help at all?

Aside from the fact its virtually impossible between exact circumstance, place, society, or genetics you literally went through the absolute same experience and thus have the same perspective, yours would be yours and theirs would be theirs. — Outlander

Yes, but what determines which one you are?

So my objection to panpsychism is that I think people are mistaking the descriptive capacity of appropriate systems for actual physical entities. — Graeme M

I can't speak for other panpsychists, but I don't think experiences, or qualia, are objects, so as far as that is concerned I agree with you. I think it makes much more sense to say that the content of experience is determined by processes and functions, possibly computations, I don't know. But I don't think any of these things can simply be identified with consciousness. For me, an experience happens when a conscious system undergoes a change.

Yes, we should probably stop talking about bananas. I was hoping the OP would return and give us some guidance about what we should be arguing about. It's easy enough to find things to argue about anyway I suppose, but it's good to stick on topic. :)

If I'm in a room with a ten other people, and I'm not sure which one I am, I don't have to study everyone's DNA, or any of the other things that make people the way they are. I am the one whose face I can't see.

The asymmetry arises as soon as the banana becomes this banana. — SophistiCat

I don't see the asymmetry.

Banno, did you miss out Paul's first person experience B?

Rather, you are asking: why this banana is this banana. This means that this banana is somehow special, compared to the others, because it has the property of "this". — SophistiCat

But unless the banana is conscious, there is no asymmetry (that is relevant to this issue anyway) between one banana and another, and this banana can happily be self-identical without raising any philosophical issues. If a banana is conscious however, then there is an asymmetry, and it would make sense for the banana to ask of itself, why am I this banana, and not my yellow friend over there.

I think you are answering the question: "What makes someone the way they are?"

I don't think that is the question @bizso09 is asking. I think the question @bizso09 is asking is:

"Out of all the possible perspectives in the universe, why do I have this perspective? Out of all the pairs of eyes that people look out of, why am I looking out of these ones, and not some other ones?"

Is that right bizso09? Do correct me if I am wrong. Tim Wood may be right and I may have missed your point.

What I am suggesting is that we are mistaken when we claim that consciousness exists because we are aware of it. — Graeme M

What does the word 'aware' in this sentence mean? It can't mean 'conscious' because you're implying that awareness exists but saying that consciousness does not exist.

What determines who I am? The question of the OP. Short answer, or rather very long answer in very short form: DNA. — tim wood

This is not a trivial question, I am not asking why a banana is a banana. — bizso09

Human experience requires a functioning intact human brain. — prothero

Yes, human experience requires a functioning human, just as canine experience requires a functioning dog, snail experience requires a functioning snail, and rock experience requires a functioning rock.

That is why panpsychism seems so untenable - it's explaining some claimed quality of the world that doesn't seem to be there. I can't for the life of me see why anyone would want to say that a rock has some kind of awareness, at least not in the sense we typically mean. — Graeme M

They'd want to say it because they think it's true, presumably what you mean is that you can't think why anyone would think it was true that a rock was aware.

I think saying things like "electrons are conscious" loses a great number of any audience that might be listening. — prothero

Yes, but there is little value in saying things that people can interpret to fit their own view if what you intend to do is disagree with them. But maybe you are a more agreeable person that I am, and maybe you will keep people interested long enough to have a conversation with them that I will miss out on.

Why is it important for some people to apply these and similar words removed from a context of living beings? — jgill

Because they think it is true, presumably. Things that seem strange sometimes turn out to be true. Then after a while it doesn't seem strange any more.

Rocks as simple aggregates would not be expected to have any unified experience. I think calling a rock "conscious" is part of what makes "panpsychism" seem silly to a lot of people. Asserting the individual constiuents of rocks "quantum events" have some form of non-conscious proto-experience is an entirely different matter. — prothero

There are different versions of panpsychism. You're a micropsychist (only constituents of rocks are conscious), I'm something else (not sure what to call it). I think any object at all, however defined, has a unitary experience. My view is much weirder than yours.

I think language is important and I try to avoid using terms like “consciousness” in ways that violate the common uses and understandings of the term. Language is imprecise and it is important to try to agree on definitions lest discussions become more disputes about usage of words than about ideas. — prothero

I agree. However, I think philosophers of mind, including me, do use the word 'consciousness' in a perfectly normal sense. Indeed, it is the sense often first listed in a dictionary.

Basically if what we ‘experience’ - our ‘experiencing’ - is what we call consciousness, — I like sushi

That's not what I would call consciousness. I'd call what we experience the content of consciousness, i.e. what we are conscious of.

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. — Jonathan Hardy

That's interesting. Let's say that's true, that phenomenologically, there is a sharp distinction between dichromatic and trichromatic experience. And let's also assume that these phenomenologies are closely correlated with biological systems. I don't really know the biology of sight at all, but can we find a similarly sharp distinction in the biology with which to correlate the phenomenology? Or can we find borderline cases of the physical biology?

Can we state that awareness is not self-awareness if we do not yet understand what awareness is? — Jonathan Hardy

No, I don't think we can. But we (or at least I) do understand what awareness is.

I too think it's a good question. So does Stephen Priest in this lecture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z10_6uaqVQc&list=PLCdW3jMJiDFAYG5-VFQy0eLyHqdGnstnB&index=3

There's been some good threads on it in the past. The best one was on the old forum unfortunately. I wonder if I saved it somewhere? I might have done, I'll have a look.

My short answer: this problem is a real one, indexicals can't in principle be done away with (but they probably can in practice if you work hard), this is metaphysically significant, and I don't know the answer.

prothero

What is the difference between protoconsciousness and consciousness?

doublespeak — Marchesk

newspeak or doublethink iirc

Thanks. Could you give an example of the usefulness of consciousness?

It is definitely evolved. — ttjordy

Why definitely?

I voted "no" because I don't think it appropriate to speak of "rights" that are unenforceable. or the violation of which is without recorse. — Ciceronianus the White

Yes, intuitively that is my view.

I dont expect more discussion there as you have hijacked my thread. — ernestm

Yeah, sorry about that. I just wanted a show of hands on the issue. Feel free to delete this thread any mods who are looking.

Thanks for your answers. You've all obviously thought about this a lot more than I have. Turns out my question glossed over a load of distinctions. I must admit I'm a bit surprised so many voted 'yes', although the 'no's have it by a small margin so far.

Are we conscious? If so what we call ‘consciousness’ is in fact just ourselves being aware of ourselves as ‘conscious’. — I like sushi

I don't understand this at all. Can you elaborate?

So awareness is being judged by consciousness' seeming premonitory ability to react to a threat? — neonspectraltoast

I don't think so, but jgill might.

I don't think awareness implies self-awareness, i.e. awareness of awareness.

I don't know what a rock might feel. Nothing very interesting I suspect.

I'm not sure what you mean, but if you mean aware that they are aware of being aware, then I doubt it.

EDIT: I said the opposite of what I meant to say. Fixed.

Consciousness is frequently conflated with awareness. I recall psychological experiments that illustrate someone being conscious of an impending threat, but unaware of it. — jgill

OK, so in your terms, I am talking about awareness in this thread. I mean by 'consciousness' what you mean by 'awareness'. I'm a panpsychist in the sense that I think everything is aware, including flowers and rocks.

There are many degrees of seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting. — jgill

I heartily agree, and you are right to point out this contradiction between me and Block (at least in this bit you quoted, I can't find the original article off hand). I apologise, it is a long time since I read Block and I did not realise he had defined consciousness in this way. Block does indeed explicitly identify consciousness with experience, and I think this is a mistake. For me, the accurate way to think about this is to say that experience is an amalgam of consciousness plus content. Block defines consciousness here by listing examples of experiences, rather than identifying consciousness with what all the experiences have in common, by virtue of which they are experiences. I should perhaps not use the term 'phenomenal consciousness' after all as it is likely to cause this confusion.

So, to clarify, there are infinite degrees of what we experience (content), but no degrees between not being able to experience at all (i.e. the condition most people think rocks are in) and being able to experience something.

↪bert1 The argument for this? — Banno

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.

Why? — Banno

Because phenomenal consciousness does not admit of degree.