trying to imagine being something with half as much consciousness
Isn’t this what we experience every day when we go to sleep or wake up? We know it must be a gradual transition, not a sudden on/off switch, because sleep is not experienced as a mere time-skip—when you wake up, you are aware that you were recently asleep, and not confused how it’s suddenly the next day. (Or at least, I don’t get the time-skip experience unless I’m very tired.)
(When I had my wisdom teeth extracted under laughing gas, it really did feel like all-or-nothing, because once I reawoke I asked if they were going to get started with the surgery soon, and I had to be told “Actually it’s finished already”. This is not how I normally experience waking up every morning.)
Hmm. I think, there are two framings of consciousness.
Framing 1, is how aware I am of my situation, and how clear my memories are, and so forth.
Framing 2, is that for beings with a low level of consciousness, there is no inner experience, no qualia, only behavioural mechanisms.
In framing 1, I can imagine being less conscious, or more conscious. But it’s hard to imagine gradually being less and less conscious, until at some point I cease to have inner experience or qualia and I’m just a robot with behavioural mechanisms (running away from things I fear, seeking things which give me reward).
It’s the second framing, which I think might not exist, since imagining it’s on a continuum feels as hard as imagining it doesn’t exist.
Isn’t this what we experience every day when we go to sleep or wake up? We know it must be a gradual transition, not a sudden on/off switch, because sleep is not experienced as a mere time-skip—when you wake up, you are aware that you were recently asleep, and not confused how it’s suddenly the next day. (Or at least, I don’t get the time-skip experience unless I’m very tired.)
(When I had my wisdom teeth extracted under laughing gas, it really did feel like all-or-nothing, because once I reawoke I asked if they were going to get started with the surgery soon, and I had to be told “Actually it’s finished already”. This is not how I normally experience waking up every morning.)
Hmm. I think, there are two framings of consciousness.
Framing 1, is how aware I am of my situation, and how clear my memories are, and so forth.
Framing 2, is that for beings with a low level of consciousness, there is no inner experience, no qualia, only behavioural mechanisms.
In framing 1, I can imagine being less conscious, or more conscious. But it’s hard to imagine gradually being less and less conscious, until at some point I cease to have inner experience or qualia and I’m just a robot with behavioural mechanisms (running away from things I fear, seeking things which give me reward).
It’s the second framing, which I think might not exist, since imagining it’s on a continuum feels as hard as imagining it doesn’t exist.