Sam Harris On Defining Consciousness

[The Grand Nudger]

In this sense, it's still a "whatever it is."  The problem with evolutionary narratives is that the narrative is accepted as a reason: "We are conscious because if we can sense and escape lions, our DNA will have a better chance of propagating" really doesn't explain why there is consciousness, or what it is.

It's still more specific.  I think we're going down the rabbit hole because you're intent on leading us there, not because we have to.

That's fine, but then the "whatever it is" that I experience as I wake up needs a new label, and we're back to another trip around the semantic merry-go-round.

Not a problem for me, though.  You can ride the semantic merry go round with qualia all you like..but I don't require it, since I'm looking to explain consciousnous, not qualia - and we obviously aren't talking about the same thing.  If you feel that "whatever it is" is a sufficient description of qualia - that's your business.  I don't, personally, think that awareness of the environment is the same as awareness of ones self -in- the environment, which...to me....seems like an important difference between consciousness as I see it, and qualia as I see it. Many things that are aware are not self aware....so far as I can tell. Specificity.

I'm sufficiently convinced of the reality of my own consciousness, by which I mean my ability to experience qualia, that I'm willing to take that chance.  The label means something, and it may not be applicable to robots.

Why, because you believe that you've observed it..or that this observation of what you percieve to be your own qualia is somehow different from any other observation...somehow more direct or trustworthy?  

Perhaps robots don't have qualia...but are they conscious?  I'd say that any robot which satisfies the metrics we use to determine consciousness in ourselves or some other x is conscious, regardless of it's status on the "whatever it is" front that concerns you. I don't think that plants experience qualia either....and yet I consider them conscious - because they fit the metrics I use for "conscious", even though they don't fit the metrics I'd use for "qualia". -reasons-, or no reasons at all.

@Rhonda, why is that a problem......and whats this up and down business anyway? Perhaps we could stop -audaciously, as you've put it, calling other animals "lower life forms"......eh? I don't have any problem recognizing situations in which a sunflower (or a lion) is my "better"...do you? I don't see that as affecting my human dignity..such as it is, lol.