True, consciousness seems to defy precise definitions.
Can I be sure that I’m conscious?
It seems to me that consciousness as commonly understood is necessary for having first-person experiences of the sort that I have, and presumably you have also. And I suspect that pondering your own consciousness implies that you are in fact conscious.
But that just moves the question back a level. How do I know that some activity is “pondering your own consciousness”? You can’t give me a description of “pondering your own consciousness” that can be used to determine if that is taking place.
How do I know that some activity is “pondering your own consciousness”?
Isn’t that what you were doing when you said “Can I be sure that I’m conscious”?
It seems to me that one’s own consciousness is beyond dispute if one is able to think about things (including but not limited to one’s own consciousness) and have first-person experiences. Even if one disputes the consciousness of others (for example, if one is a solipsist), I don’t see how anyone can reasonably doubt his/her own consciousness.
It’s turtles all the way down. Just like you can’t give me a description of consciousness, and you can’t give me a description of “pondering your own consciousness”, you can’t give me a description of “first person experiences” either. You can’t give me a description of any of these related concepts except in terms of other such concepts.
It’s not so much that I’m doubting whether I’m conscious, but rather I’m doubting whether I can figure out whether I’m conscious. I can’t figure out if I have something when you can’t communicate to me exactly what it is that I may or may not have.
Can you figure out whether there are chairs in your house? How? Suppose you say that there are. How do you know they are chairs and not something else? If you answer those questions, we can continue in the same way and ask how you know those answers are right and what they mean. You will never be able to explain any concept without using other concepts, and we can always say, “but what are those things?”
I would say there is no difference; consciousness is no harder to recognize than chairs (and in fact a bit easier.) If you think there is a difference, what is it?
If I ask you to describe a chair, ultimately you’ll describe it in terms of things I can perceive. “A chair is something made for sitting. Sitting is this thing I’m doing” and I can watch you sitting, therefore getting an idea of what sitting is. I can’t watch your consciousness.
But what is watching someone sitting, and what is “getting an idea of what sitting is”? Those aren’t things which are easy to watch.
And if you say you can notice yourself watching someone sitting and notice yourself getting an idea of what sitting is, then you can notice yourself being conscious. So there shouldn’t be any difficulty figuring out whether you are conscious. The difficulty (if there is one) would be figuring out whether someone else is conscious. And it is equally difficult to know whether someone else has an idea of what sitting is.
If you want to tell me what a chair is, you can point to a chair and its characteristics and I can look at it. I can then notice that when I look at that chair, and when I look at an object inside my house, they look pretty much the same. So I conclude that the object inside my house seems to be what you would call a chair. (Of course, you’d probably describe a chair in a more complicated way, but it would come down to a lot of instances of that.)
If I try to do that for consciousness, one of the intermediate steps is missing. I can’t look at your consciousness, then look at mine, and say “hmm, they seem to be the same sort of thing”. Each one is (or is purported to be) only visible to one person.
The fact that I can “notice myself being conscious” doesn’t change this. I can’t compare consciousnesses. While it’s true that I can’t directly compare my idea of sitting to your idea of sitting, I can go through the intermediary of asking you to sit, then comparing what I see when you sit to what I see when I sit.
I can then notice that when I look at that chair, and when I look at an object inside my house, they look pretty much the same. So I conclude that the object inside my house seems to be what you would call a chair.
If you notice when things look pretty much the same, then I can explain what I mean by consciousness, without you having to see what my consciousness is like. In fact, we can assume I have no consciousness and you are the only one who has it: we can talk about it anyway.
First, notice that things look pretty similar at all the times when you are awake, compared to times when you are sleep. That is like noticing that two chairs are alike. Then, notice that when you are asleep and dreaming, that is also similar, although less similar, to the times when you are awake, and dissimilar to the times when you are asleep and not dreaming. Then, suppose there are also some times when you sleepwalk, but without dreaming. Those are noticeably similar to times when you are asleep without dreaming but doing nothing—in fact those times seem exactly alike until later when you judge them by other evidence.
Now when I say “you are conscious,” I am talking about the similarity between the times when you are awake and the times when you are dreaming, in contrast with the times when you are asleep and not dreaming.
Now when I say “you are conscious,” I am talking about the similarity between the times when you are awake and the times when you are dreaming, in contrast with the times when you are asleep and not dreaming.
You don’t have a separate word which means “Jiro’s consciousness” and nothing else. You have a single word which is used both for mine and yours, which implies that they are the similar. What you’ve just described fails to imply that similarity, so it doesn’t match the way you are using the word.
I deliberately failed to imply the similarity, since I said that we would define consciousness in that way even if I were not conscious.
However, you are quite right that I would not actually know about consciousness if I were not. And indeed, I notice the similarity between being awake and dreaming sleep, as opposed to dreamless sleep, in the same way that you do. So I quite rightly talk about consciousness being the same in you and in me.
It’s not so much that I’m doubting whether I’m conscious, but rather I’m doubting whether I can figure out whether I’m conscious.
If you don’t doubt you are conscious, I’m not sure why you would need to figure out whether you are conscious—it seems to me that you already know based on direct experience.
Just like you can’t give me a description of consciousness, and you can’t give me a description of “pondering your own consciousness”, you can’t give me a description of “first person experiences” either.
That these things are difficult to describe is not in dispute; that is what I meant when I said “consciousness seems to defy precise definitions”. But, we can still talk about them as there seems to be a shared understanding of the concepts.
One need not have a precise definition of a thing to discuss and believe in that thing or to know that one is effected by that thing. For example, consider someone unschooled in physics beyond a grade-school level. He/she knows about gravity, knows that he/she is subject to the effects of gravity and can make (qualitative) predictions about the effects of gravity, even if he/she cannot say whether gravity is a force, a warping of spacetime, both of these things, neither of these things, or even understand the distinction. Similarly, there is enough of a common understanding of consciousness and first person experiences for a person to be confident that she/he is conscious and has first person experiences.
I do agree that the lack of precise definition (and, more importantly, the lack of measurable or externally observable manifestations) makes it impossible (at the present) for an observer to know whether some other entity is conscious.
True, consciousness seems to defy precise definitions.
It seems to me that consciousness as commonly understood is necessary for having first-person experiences of the sort that I have, and presumably you have also. And I suspect that pondering your own consciousness implies that you are in fact conscious.
But that just moves the question back a level. How do I know that some activity is “pondering your own consciousness”? You can’t give me a description of “pondering your own consciousness” that can be used to determine if that is taking place.
Isn’t that what you were doing when you said “Can I be sure that I’m conscious”?
It seems to me that one’s own consciousness is beyond dispute if one is able to think about things (including but not limited to one’s own consciousness) and have first-person experiences. Even if one disputes the consciousness of others (for example, if one is a solipsist), I don’t see how anyone can reasonably doubt his/her own consciousness.
It’s turtles all the way down. Just like you can’t give me a description of consciousness, and you can’t give me a description of “pondering your own consciousness”, you can’t give me a description of “first person experiences” either. You can’t give me a description of any of these related concepts except in terms of other such concepts.
It’s not so much that I’m doubting whether I’m conscious, but rather I’m doubting whether I can figure out whether I’m conscious. I can’t figure out if I have something when you can’t communicate to me exactly what it is that I may or may not have.
Can you figure out whether there are chairs in your house? How? Suppose you say that there are. How do you know they are chairs and not something else? If you answer those questions, we can continue in the same way and ask how you know those answers are right and what they mean. You will never be able to explain any concept without using other concepts, and we can always say, “but what are those things?”
I would say there is no difference; consciousness is no harder to recognize than chairs (and in fact a bit easier.) If you think there is a difference, what is it?
If I ask you to describe a chair, ultimately you’ll describe it in terms of things I can perceive. “A chair is something made for sitting. Sitting is this thing I’m doing” and I can watch you sitting, therefore getting an idea of what sitting is. I can’t watch your consciousness.
But what is watching someone sitting, and what is “getting an idea of what sitting is”? Those aren’t things which are easy to watch.
And if you say you can notice yourself watching someone sitting and notice yourself getting an idea of what sitting is, then you can notice yourself being conscious. So there shouldn’t be any difficulty figuring out whether you are conscious. The difficulty (if there is one) would be figuring out whether someone else is conscious. And it is equally difficult to know whether someone else has an idea of what sitting is.
I think maybe I’m not being clear.
If you want to tell me what a chair is, you can point to a chair and its characteristics and I can look at it. I can then notice that when I look at that chair, and when I look at an object inside my house, they look pretty much the same. So I conclude that the object inside my house seems to be what you would call a chair. (Of course, you’d probably describe a chair in a more complicated way, but it would come down to a lot of instances of that.)
If I try to do that for consciousness, one of the intermediate steps is missing. I can’t look at your consciousness, then look at mine, and say “hmm, they seem to be the same sort of thing”. Each one is (or is purported to be) only visible to one person.
The fact that I can “notice myself being conscious” doesn’t change this. I can’t compare consciousnesses. While it’s true that I can’t directly compare my idea of sitting to your idea of sitting, I can go through the intermediary of asking you to sit, then comparing what I see when you sit to what I see when I sit.
If you notice when things look pretty much the same, then I can explain what I mean by consciousness, without you having to see what my consciousness is like. In fact, we can assume I have no consciousness and you are the only one who has it: we can talk about it anyway.
First, notice that things look pretty similar at all the times when you are awake, compared to times when you are sleep. That is like noticing that two chairs are alike. Then, notice that when you are asleep and dreaming, that is also similar, although less similar, to the times when you are awake, and dissimilar to the times when you are asleep and not dreaming. Then, suppose there are also some times when you sleepwalk, but without dreaming. Those are noticeably similar to times when you are asleep without dreaming but doing nothing—in fact those times seem exactly alike until later when you judge them by other evidence.
Now when I say “you are conscious,” I am talking about the similarity between the times when you are awake and the times when you are dreaming, in contrast with the times when you are asleep and not dreaming.
You don’t have a separate word which means “Jiro’s consciousness” and nothing else. You have a single word which is used both for mine and yours, which implies that they are the similar. What you’ve just described fails to imply that similarity, so it doesn’t match the way you are using the word.
I deliberately failed to imply the similarity, since I said that we would define consciousness in that way even if I were not conscious.
However, you are quite right that I would not actually know about consciousness if I were not. And indeed, I notice the similarity between being awake and dreaming sleep, as opposed to dreamless sleep, in the same way that you do. So I quite rightly talk about consciousness being the same in you and in me.
If you don’t doubt you are conscious, I’m not sure why you would need to figure out whether you are conscious—it seems to me that you already know based on direct experience.
That these things are difficult to describe is not in dispute; that is what I meant when I said “consciousness seems to defy precise definitions”. But, we can still talk about them as there seems to be a shared understanding of the concepts.
One need not have a precise definition of a thing to discuss and believe in that thing or to know that one is effected by that thing. For example, consider someone unschooled in physics beyond a grade-school level. He/she knows about gravity, knows that he/she is subject to the effects of gravity and can make (qualitative) predictions about the effects of gravity, even if he/she cannot say whether gravity is a force, a warping of spacetime, both of these things, neither of these things, or even understand the distinction. Similarly, there is enough of a common understanding of consciousness and first person experiences for a person to be confident that she/he is conscious and has first person experiences.
I do agree that the lack of precise definition (and, more importantly, the lack of measurable or externally observable manifestations) makes it impossible (at the present) for an observer to know whether some other entity is conscious.