I don’t think so. Compare the following two requests:
(1) Describe a refrigerator without using the word refrigerator or near-synonyms.
(2) Describe the structure of a refrigerator in terms of moving parts and/or subprocesses.
The first request demands the tabooing of words; the second request demands an answer of a particular (theory-laden) form. I think the OPs request is like request 2. What’s more, I expect submitting request 2 to a random sample of people would license the same erroneous conclusion about “refrigerator” as it did about “consciousness”.
This is not to say there are no special challenges associated with “consciousness” that do not hold for “refrigerator”. Indeed, I believe there are. However, the basic point that people can be referring to a single phenomenon even if they have different beliefs about the phenomenon’s underlying structure seems to me fairly straightforward.
Edit: I see sunwillrise gave a much more detailed response already. That response seems pretty much on the money to me.
I will also point people to this paper if they are interested in reading an attempt by a prominent philosopher of consciousness at defining it in minimally objectionable terms.
I don’t think so. Compare the following two requests:
(1) Describe a refrigerator without using the word refrigerator or near-synonyms.
(2) Describe the structure of a refrigerator in terms of moving parts and/or subprocesses.
The first request demands the tabooing of words; the second request demands an answer of a particular (theory-laden) form. I think the OPs request is like request 2. What’s more, I expect submitting request 2 to a random sample of people would license the same erroneous conclusion about “refrigerator” as it did about “consciousness”.
This is not to say there are no special challenges associated with “consciousness” that do not hold for “refrigerator”. Indeed, I believe there are. However, the basic point that people can be referring to a single phenomenon even if they have different beliefs about the phenomenon’s underlying structure seems to me fairly straightforward.
Edit: I see sunwillrise gave a much more detailed response already. That response seems pretty much on the money to me.
I will also point people to this paper if they are interested in reading an attempt by a prominent philosopher of consciousness at defining it in minimally objectionable terms.