I don't so much disagree as am confused by what people (including myself) mean with the word "consciousness". It also doen't seem like this is a discussion of pure qualia on the level of "Is the red you see the same as the one I see?"
For one, I certainly judge you, Mr. Internet Person Monktastic1, as being conscious. And I can somewhat unpack that judgement into relatively empirical observations that can be cross-compared with someone else. This feels really similar to my judgement of you as possesing the trait "human".
On a meta-discussion level, the rhetoric I usually encounter reminds me a lot of the Plato-Diogenes debate on the essence of "human". Can we really reduce the intuitive notion of consciousness to "featherless biped thougts" or some such?
For those reasons, I suspect that the intuitive notion of "consciousness" is more a (fuzzy) collection expectations we have on lower level traits. Like, since you are able to engage in this conversation, I judge you as human and therefore this leads me to expect that you also have a functioning pancreas. On the surface though, language ability and pancreas possession don't have any obvious reason to be linked.
Taking a bird's-eye view, I do hope that this discussion continues until the questions become sharp and precise enough to be called science instead of philosophy.
> I don't so much disagree as am confused by what people (including myself) mean with the word "consciousness".
If I close my eyes and ask myself "doesn't something seem to be happening?" (setting aside, for a moment, whether anything is actually happening -- since that requires a whole slew of interpretations), the answer is an unequivocal "yes." That (to me) is consciousness. There is a particular certainty (whether right or wrong) that applies only to that question.
Whether you have a functioning pancreas is something that, in principle, we each have access to. Whether or not "something seems to be happening" for you is inaccessible to me, even in principle. At least, as far as I can see.
For one, I certainly judge you, Mr. Internet Person Monktastic1, as being conscious. And I can somewhat unpack that judgement into relatively empirical observations that can be cross-compared with someone else. This feels really similar to my judgement of you as possesing the trait "human".
On a meta-discussion level, the rhetoric I usually encounter reminds me a lot of the Plato-Diogenes debate on the essence of "human". Can we really reduce the intuitive notion of consciousness to "featherless biped thougts" or some such?
For those reasons, I suspect that the intuitive notion of "consciousness" is more a (fuzzy) collection expectations we have on lower level traits. Like, since you are able to engage in this conversation, I judge you as human and therefore this leads me to expect that you also have a functioning pancreas. On the surface though, language ability and pancreas possession don't have any obvious reason to be linked.
Taking a bird's-eye view, I do hope that this discussion continues until the questions become sharp and precise enough to be called science instead of philosophy.