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Having browsed my dictionaries and checked the net, I'd say it was the state of beingIt's not an object that can be observed as can anything else. Can you define consciousness?
It's not an object that can be observed as can anything else. Can you define consciousness?
I can propose a definition. It would be better not to, except that technology is moving us very close to a point at which we will need to decide what is and isn't conscious. I don't mean that we must decide today, but it could be soon.It's not an object that can be observed as can anything else. Can you define consciousness?
It's not an object that can be observed as can anything else. Can you define consciousness?
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As you asked this under "Philosophy" and I assume that you want a relevant definition, I'd say, "no I can't".It's not an object that can be observed as can anything else. Can you define consciousness?
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As you asked this under "Philosophy" and I assume that you want a relevant definition, I'd say, "no I can't".
To explain, or only to define consciousness in a philosophical context is an ongoing process for a long time and all proposed definitions haven't found consensus yet. I suspect that is by design.
We still don't have enough hard, undeniable facts. I think that science has to come up with a definition first, supported by measurements, for philosophers to be pressed to consent on their definition.
Thank you for demonstrating my points.The problem you have is that consciousness is subjective. So here is how the subjective as a human behavior works including consciousness. It has no objective referent. Further if something as behavior can be done subjectively, anybody can get away claim that their subjective understanding is objective. How? Because you can subjectively claim something is objective as long as what you do is subjective.
So here is the answer for what consciousness is:
The Thomas Theorem:
Thomas Theorem - Oxford Reference
"A concept formulated by the American sociologist William Isaac Thomas (1863–1967) that ‘“*facts” do not have a uniform existence apart from the persons who observe and interpret them. Rather, the “real” facts are the ways in which different people come into and define situations’. Famously, as he and his research assistant and wife Dorothy Swaine Thomas (1899–1977) put it in 1928, ‘If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences’. Such a ‘subjective’ definition of the situation by a social actor, group, or subculture is what Merton came to call a self-fulfilling prophecy (as in cases of ‘mind over matter’). It is at the heart of symbolic interactionism. See also constructionism; frame of reference; framing; perspectivism."
So here is your problem: Any definition done by any human including any human doing science for something, which is subjective, can't be observed using science. You start by being subjective based on you considering your definition to be correct. But it is not correct, true or a fact. It is a subjective belief, which works (is real to you), but I simply use another subjective definition, which works for me.
The problem is that neither of us can use science as a methodology to test, which one definition is correct. How? Because neither definition has no objective referent.
In effect you wouldn't be doing science, you would be doing philosophy like everybody else including me. I just know that it is so for both of us. Where as you in effect believe that your definition would be scientific, because you say so. It wouldn't because it would have no objective referent.
Don't be ridiculous. Science is well aware of subjectivity and scientific method has as one of its aims the maximizing of objectivity. A world exists external to the self, and our senses are capable of informing us about that world, and science proceeds to do so.Any definition done by any human including any human doing science for something, which is subjective, can't be observed using science.
It's not an object that can be observed as can anything else. Can you define consciousness?
View attachment 46922
Photo by Adil from Pexels
Any and all experience.It's not an object that can be observed as can anything else. Can you define consciousness?
Any and all experience.
Don't be ridiculous. Science is well aware of subjectivity and scientific method has as one of its aims the maximizing of objectivity. A world exists external to the self, and our senses are capable of informing us about that world, and science proceeds to do so.
Which is how come your computer exists and how come the net is here for you to use ─ accurate statements about reality that you not only agree with but rely on.
That's an interesting question but not one I think we have to answer when we're trying to get a grip on what it is we mean when we say consciousness.What is it that observes or is aware of any and all experience?
Then how is it possible for you to have communicated that to me?That I agree, doesn't exist external to the self
Yes, everyone is subjective. And yes, evolution has equipped humans to interpret the external world in particular ways (those beneficial to survival and breeding). Human language, with its ability to label particular real things, and then to go beyond that with the extensive use of concepts, abstractions, generalizations, categories, and so on, is a handy demonstration of this. And yes, even such a direct activity as counting requires the observer to select the thing to be counted, and the field in which it is to be counted, before there can be instantiations of two, three, four &c.You are subjective!!!
Then how is it possible for you to have communicated that to me?
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*chuckle* Very droll!Because you apparently don't understand inter-subjectivity.
It's not an object that can be observed as can anything else. Can you define consciousness?
View attachment 46922
Photo by Adil from Pexels
Or let me put it this way. Science is the best system of exploring reality that we have, and that's not because it has any access to absolutes, since they don't exist, but because it works.Because you apparently don't understand inter-subjectivity.
That's an interesting question but not one I think we have to answer when we're trying to get a grip on what it is we mean when we say consciousness.
If you press me I'd say something vague like, observers. Or conscious agents. In short, things that can have experiences. I wouldn't want to postulate too deeply on the nature of what these are because it is an absolute rabbit hole that I get lost in quite quickly
Advaita Vedanta philosophy has quite a bit to say about this, yes?
Edit: I think the swami I was listening to called it 'the witness' or something to that effect.