Sam Harris On Defining Consciousness

[The Grand Nudger]

What happens in the morning when you wake up is thought to be more than just consciousness Benny.  You are not just conscious, but also self-conscious, and sentient.  We don;t have any reason to accept that everything which is conscious shares any significant portion of -your- experience when waking. Waking up in the morning as an earthworm is, presumably, a bit different than waking up as Benny - and that makes your label less than useful, in that it is vague and immediately runs up against demonstrable observations of the thing we hope to explain. The definition of consciousness as the state of being aware is something tangible, which we can at least provide a suitable test of and demonstration for expecting some uniformity in results along predictable lines. "Whatever it is that happens when I wake up" is not in that place....you know what happens when I wake up? I take a shit (and shortly thereafter the sun rises, you're welcome for that btw, yet another service I provide). So, is taking a shit or causing the sun to rise what you mean by conscious? Somehow I doubt it.

As to your idea of what constitutes a circle, we acknowledge and recognize the limitations and possible routes for error that our consciousness imparts upon us, at least those we can id - and we also accept that there may be more that we do not. We have terms for them, but it's simply not possible for us to assess these things -or anything- in any other way, an impossible condition to overcome. In any case, if you have a problem with using our minds to seek knowledge here you should have a problem with using our minds to seek knowledge regarding -everything-.....including the comments you just made, regarding said circles. It's now scorched earth, which I don't think is your intention.

You see, these rules of inference youre leveraging and hinting towards are equally grounded in those convolutions and unfounded assumptions as anything else, they are simply observations made by conscious agents as to how the universe appears to behave, what implicational relationships statements or declarations of truth have in this, perceived, universe......and why would we accept that they represent some objective reality while simultaneously extending doubt or suspicion on things in precisely the same predicament? Are you using some -other- apparatus than your consciousness (however achieved) to perceive, label, and define? Got aftermarket parts in that case? Of course not. You're -in- that bastion, commenting -from- that bastion by -use- of that bastion on the folly of others. If it's unfounded or groundless to accept what they've offered, it's unfounded and groundless to accept what you've offered...for precisely the same reason, though that reason isn't much of a reason at all (nor is any reason), since reason is in that bastion as well.........as you so astutely stated when you described the status of everything we percieve...but...then again, all of that is in that bastion too........so perhaps your groundless and unfounded reasons are not really reasons for non-reasons? Or perhaps they aren't reasons because of non-reasons but -still- accurate? Gee, how can I decide anymore? If I accept that you're right (regardless of whether or not you are), that your concerns are valid, I'd have to conclude that you and your concerns were equally as wrong as what those concerns were leveraged at, that they were not valid (but also that validity itself was a groundless and unfounded assumption). I'm not sure it's the sort of thing I can parse if I follow it through, obviously I don't think that you have, here you are offering those concerns after all, I assume you perceive them to be valid or true, accurate in some sense.