Sam Harris On Defining Consciousness

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I think consciousness is the most slippery of eels. We only experience it through itself.

I say "we"; I do. Maybe. It's the barrier between whatever I am (or am not) and whatever may or may not be real. Whatever "real" means. I can never have my consciousness independently verified.

I hear other people say they experience the same as me, but naively I find myself asking "where" is their consciousness. Of course I know this is the wrong question. More apt is how can I ever know that something else experiences consciousness like I do? I think the answer is again that I can't. All we can do (me and all you figments of my delusion) is to try and agree on a definition and go with it.

So, are plants deemed to be conscious? They clearly respond to stimuli. It does seem that knowing where to stop is the key to defining consciousness. A pebble still "responds to stimuli" in as much as it moves when I kick it. So is it about creating changes in forces? The pebble doesn't change what forces it is imposing when I kick it, but a plant does (even if it's something as small as leaning to get more sunlight).

Hmm. Maybe the difference is between reacting and adapting. Plants adapt to their surroundings, conscious beings react. What's the difference? Response times, maybe?

I also recently got a little fuzzy on what exactly the difference between an animal and a plant is. I was told some animals, crustacean type things like mussels or something, don't have a central nervous system or a brain. I haven't checked out how true that is yet.