Sam Harris On Defining Consciousness

[AFTT47]

Go dig one up and see what it does.  Just as you don't actually have to understand -how- a telephone works in order to determine that it -does- work, you don't have to understand -how- a worms (or any) consciousness works to see that it -does- work.

Now I see why Harris wants to define consciousness. Rhythm obviously doesn't define it the way I do.

An earthworm is autonomous. It responds to stimuli. But does it have an awareness that it even exists? I have a hard time seeing how given that its brain is extremely simple as brains go. Scientists have mapped the entire thing. It's considerably less complex than my computer's CPU.