What is Consciousness?

[Giff]

Dear Giff:

That's starting somewhere, but I think we need to go a lot further. Shrews have brains -- are they conscious? Bees do too, but they seem even less conscious than shrews. Any definition of consciousness which doesn't advance a distinction between reportable/nonreportable mental events, between objective and subjective criteria, between pre-event and post-event awareness, etc., isn't a workable definition for the purposes of a discussion about evidence.

Which is a long way of asking: what is it that a plant can't do, by virtue of its lack of a brain?

All best,

Zachary

It depends on what type of brain. More intellegence the more conscious and selfaware are you. Bees and such just react on instinct.

[g-mark]

That's why it is always important to take your dictionaries with a little pinch of salt

We should just all make up our own definitions of things. Thats sounds like it would work well.

[Edwardo Piet]

I don't think it does...

[Darwinian]

Conciousness is one of the ten unexplained properties of the brian/mind. What the other nine are I don't know