Sam Harris On Defining Consciousness

[Whateverist]

Am currently reading Sam Harris book “Spirituality Without God.” Harris talks about the difficulty of defining consciousness.  I know there are different degrees of consciousness, but I think he’s talking about basic consciousness as a province of sentient beings.  It is, I think, the difference between a “being” and a mere organism or object.

As Harris says, we know what consciousness isbut simply cannot define it the same way we define a concept like fluidity (the movement of like molecules.) I think the main problem is the definitions we use in our efforts to define consciousness are not exclusive enough in a world of high technology. What could we say? Is consciousness memory? Does having awareness make one conscious? Maybe it should be qualified as self-awareness. . but can it be said that  a computer program that is able to detext  foreign input and distinguish it from native code is self-aware?  As the guardians of human dignity, we want to define consciousness in a way that excludes Windows,  and none of the above indicators does that. What’s more, as Harris points out, they can only be verified subjectively. I know that I am conscious because I know that I am conscious. But how can we prove, using the scientific method, that others have consciousness?

I look at consciousness, like most other constructs, as a spectrum. Modern computers are conscious, in a sense, but to such a low extent compared to humans that it'd be meaningless to consider them as such.

I disagree.  I think consciousness is all about "being" and not at all about "doing".  Whatever it is your computer can "do" has fuck all to do with whether any consciousness is being experienced by the computer.  We know we ourselves are conscious.  But we can only speculate as to what markers indicate the presence of consciousness.  The markers of consciousness, always in dispute, are never consciousness itself.