My claim is that this is the same type of confusion as the person above not clear about the difference between “warmth” and “red” because they’ve always experienced them together.
I still don’t know what two things you are pointing to that you are claiming are being confused with each other. Imagine that English is my second language, and while I have a reasonable competence in it, I happen never to have encountered either of the words “self” and “consciousness”. How would you express the distinction you are drawing?
I actually don’t understand what’s being said in this essay enough to figure out what claim she is making about consciousness.
She says many different things, some of which seem clear enough, but they seem inconsistent with each other. Again there is the problem of distinguishing the thing that is being talked about from the things that are being claimed about that thing.
I still don’t know what two things you are pointing to that you are claiming are being confused with each other. Imagine that English is my second language, and while I have a reasonable competence in it, I happen never to have encountered either of the words “self” and “consciousness”. How would you express the distinction you are drawing?
I’m claiming that the original thing you pointed at
I have a vivid sensation of my own presence, my own self. This is the thing I am pointing at when I say that I am conscious.
Now take away “presence”, “self,” and “I have”, What’s left is awareness of “sensation” without needing a subject. That awareness is somewhere in the ballpark of consciousness.
People commonly report that the strength of their self-sensation varies depending on what they are doing. In particular, flow states are frequently described as ones where the sense of self vanishes, as the person’s focus is purely on the activity and nothing else. Just the doing, with no room for the sensation of a self, as the person’s entire focus is on the sensations of the doing.
Not really. I can be hard at work on something, my focus on the activity, but my sense of myself never vanishes. I can remember being “lost in a book” as a child, but not since then, and I don’t find it a particularly desirable state of mind.
I still don’t know what two things you are pointing to that you are claiming are being confused with each other. Imagine that English is my second language, and while I have a reasonable competence in it, I happen never to have encountered either of the words “self” and “consciousness”. How would you express the distinction you are drawing?
She says many different things, some of which seem clear enough, but they seem inconsistent with each other. Again there is the problem of distinguishing the thing that is being talked about from the things that are being claimed about that thing.
I’m claiming that the original thing you pointed at
Now take away “presence”, “self,” and “I have”, What’s left is awareness of “sensation” without needing a subject. That awareness is somewhere in the ballpark of consciousness.
People commonly report that the strength of their self-sensation varies depending on what they are doing. In particular, flow states are frequently described as ones where the sense of self vanishes, as the person’s focus is purely on the activity and nothing else. Just the doing, with no room for the sensation of a self, as the person’s entire focus is on the sensations of the doing.
Does this match anything in your experience?
Not really. I can be hard at work on something, my focus on the activity, but my sense of myself never vanishes. I can remember being “lost in a book” as a child, but not since then, and I don’t find it a particularly desirable state of mind.