A problem in talking about these things is that there is no easy way to agree on what the words we are using refer to. This is why in the OP I tried to give an idea of what it is like to experience this thing I am trying to get at. When I wrote “This is the thing I am pointing at when I say that I am conscious”, that was a statement about how I use the word “conscious”, not an attribution of something else called “consciousness” to that state.
I get that, I’m trying to point to something a little more subtle. That is, I think the thing you’re calling consciousness is rather a gross sensation that correlates with consciousness based on your perception of a homonoculus inside of you.
If that perception of a homonoculus went away, I suspect you would still experience something you called consciousness, but as simply a subset subtle sensation that you can’t seperate out right now from the gross sensation of the homonoculus.
As preliminary evidence of this, and contrary to your original claim, I did a Google search, and couldn’t find any claims of meditation exposing the illusion of consciousness, but many about it exposing the illusion of self. Once the homonoculus goes away, it seems that the thing people call consciousness is still there.
It would be like if you always experienced red in the presence of warmth, and never experienced warmth without red. You would come to believe that red WAS warmth.
A problem in talking about these things is that there is no easy way to agree on what the words we are using refer to. This is why in the OP I tried to give an idea of what it is like to experience this thing I am trying to get at. When I wrote “This is the thing I am pointing at when I say that I am conscious”, that was a statement about how I use the word “conscious”, not an attribution of something else called “consciousness” to that state.
I get that, I’m trying to point to something a little more subtle. That is, I think the thing you’re calling consciousness is rather a gross sensation that correlates with consciousness based on your perception of a homonoculus inside of you.
If that perception of a homonoculus went away, I suspect you would still experience something you called consciousness, but as simply a subset subtle sensation that you can’t seperate out right now from the gross sensation of the homonoculus.
As preliminary evidence of this, and contrary to your original claim, I did a Google search, and couldn’t find any claims of meditation exposing the illusion of consciousness, but many about it exposing the illusion of self. Once the homonoculus goes away, it seems that the thing people call consciousness is still there.
It would be like if you always experienced red in the presence of warmth, and never experienced warmth without red. You would come to believe that red WAS warmth.