I can’t tell from the post whether you yourself have any guesses as to what people are trying to point to when they talk about “consciousness” (presumably phenomenal consciousness).
I agree that I am capable of modeling and thinking about myself.
Some questions that might serve as intuition pumps (and also give me a better idea of what you might be missing, if anything):
Are you capable of introspecting on your sensory experiences? Like, if your arm is resting on the edge of your desk, can you deliberately pay attention to the sensation of your arm resting on the edge of the desk, notice various things about it, maybe consider how it differs from other sensations you’re having at that moment (or have had in the past)?
Do you have any sort of mental narration going, either constantly, or when you start paying attention to whatever you’re thinking about? Does the idea of deliberately paying attention to whatever you’re currently thinking about make any sense to you? Does the idea of that act of paying attention generating sensory information that you feel/experience the same way you feel/experience many other sensory inputs make any sense to you?
Are you capable of introspecting on your sensory experiences? Like, if your arm is resting on the edge of your desk, can you deliberately pay attention to the sensation of your arm resting on the edge of the desk, notice various things about it, maybe consider how it differs from other sensations you’re having at that moment (or have had in the past)?
Yes, this is something I can do. I don’t think this necessitates consciousness, I can definitely deliberately choose to process the sensation in more detail and compare it to remembered inputs in the past, but this just requires being able to remember previous inputs.
Do you have any sort of mental narration going, either constantly, or when you start paying attention to whatever you’re thinking about?
Yes, very much so. I also don’t think this necessitates consciousness. Obviously, mental narration isn’t fully textual, but it’s close enough that you could compare it to a program which writes down text on a scratchpad and reads it back into its inputs.
Does the idea of deliberately paying attention to whatever you’re currently thinking about make any sense to you?
Uh, if I’m thinking about it presumably I am already paying attention to, but yes if I want to I could choose to pay more attention to a given thing.
Does the idea of that act of paying attention generating sensory information that you feel/experience the same way you feel/experience many other sensory inputs make any sense to you?
If you’re referring to the idea of somatic sensations, I’m familiar.
(To clarify, none of those were meant to be examples of things that I believe require consciousness, though maybe some of them are by accident.)
It sounds to me like you’re mostly taking issue with people’s inability to precisely specify what they’re talking about, rather than claiming that you lack any notion of (or, uh, experience of) “being a thing that has experiences”.
I have a notion of specific abilities people can have, but people seem to think they have some sort of experience beyond that which is related to/caused by the abilities.
I can’t tell from the post whether you yourself have any guesses as to what people are trying to point to when they talk about “consciousness” (presumably phenomenal consciousness).
Some questions that might serve as intuition pumps (and also give me a better idea of what you might be missing, if anything):
Are you capable of introspecting on your sensory experiences? Like, if your arm is resting on the edge of your desk, can you deliberately pay attention to the sensation of your arm resting on the edge of the desk, notice various things about it, maybe consider how it differs from other sensations you’re having at that moment (or have had in the past)?
Do you have any sort of mental narration going, either constantly, or when you start paying attention to whatever you’re thinking about? Does the idea of deliberately paying attention to whatever you’re currently thinking about make any sense to you? Does the idea of that act of paying attention generating sensory information that you feel/experience the same way you feel/experience many other sensory inputs make any sense to you?
Yes, this is something I can do. I don’t think this necessitates consciousness, I can definitely deliberately choose to process the sensation in more detail and compare it to remembered inputs in the past, but this just requires being able to remember previous inputs.
Yes, very much so. I also don’t think this necessitates consciousness. Obviously, mental narration isn’t fully textual, but it’s close enough that you could compare it to a program which writes down text on a scratchpad and reads it back into its inputs.
Uh, if I’m thinking about it presumably I am already paying attention to, but yes if I want to I could choose to pay more attention to a given thing.
If you’re referring to the idea of somatic sensations, I’m familiar.
(To clarify, none of those were meant to be examples of things that I believe require consciousness, though maybe some of them are by accident.)
It sounds to me like you’re mostly taking issue with people’s inability to precisely specify what they’re talking about, rather than claiming that you lack any notion of (or, uh, experience of) “being a thing that has experiences”.
I have a notion of specific abilities people can have, but people seem to think they have some sort of experience beyond that which is related to/caused by the abilities.
Strong disagree. If you have ‘sensory experiences’ you are definitionally conscious.
What’s your definition of consciousness that you think otherwise?