Mindfulness or Mindlessness?

[The Grand Nudger]

We can dial the number up and down, it'd just be a different toaster.  The question goes directly to the evolutionary advantage of consciousness over mere processing.  Sure, being able to do stuff, and alot of stuff..is great.  However, what is great or meaningfully different about being able to do stuff, alot of stuff - and being conscious.

Maybe you could clarify. Are you asking what the difference is between something that acts intentionally and something at acts as if it was intentional? Is your position with respect to consciousness is that if something quacks and walks like a duck then it must be a duck, i.e. if something acts sentient that indicates that it is?

Also, just an FYI, in his book, Mind & Cosmos, Thomas Nagel contends that there is a second problem: if consciousness is, at best epiphenomenal, then how could natural selection somehow favor it...at least in the case of humans.

That's more the question of functionalism than my own, really.   But only because I have an axiomatic answer and functionalism doesn't.  

But, sure, I can clarify.  You probably don't think that whatever particular brain state amounts to desire..in me...is identical (or even could be identical) to the one in you for the same.  You might think that consciousness is more than just brain states, too...but..certainly, even if it were just brain states, you're unlikely to believe that either of us have identical brain states.  Still...you think that you desire, and you think that I desire.  

The semantics of state and specificity do not allow for this...not just with brain states...but soul states too - if there were such a thing.  Functionalism does.  In fact, functionalism is the only productive and contemporary theory of consciousness of any kind which allows for exactly the kinds of consciousness which you might, specifically as a theist, prefer. Dis-emobodied, non human, or omnipotent agents...? Why not, under functionalism. Impossible by definition under state theory. The states being referred to must be specifically our own and those states don't allow for non human conscuiousness, let alone a disembodied and/or omnipotent ones.

Which is why it's so amusing to see objections. But, yeah, it's a good question. What does being conscious of processing which accomplishes some task provide that wasn't already supplied in the doing of the thing - which is the fundamental contention of functionalism to begin with. That a description of such a thing is a description of a function.