Sam Harris On Defining Consciousness

[AFTT47]

I'm not great with this type of philosophy stuff so bear with me.

What does a definition of consciousness do for us (other than give us defining terms)? Once there is an agreed upon definition, then what?

I think the idea is then we can say what is conscious and what is not. I don't buy that. We can infer that consciousness arises from the processes of the brain but I as far as I know, we haven't the slightest clue how that works. Being so ignorant, how are we to distinguish what level of complexity is required? We know we are conscious and it's safe to say a brick is not. A house cat almost certainly is while an earthworm is almost certainly not. But what about a gecko? I don't think a definition is really going to help much when we have so little understanding of how consciousness works.