I don’t think I understand what you mean by consciousness being objective. When you mention “what processes, materials, etc. we subjectively choose to use as the criteria for consciousness”, this sounds to me as if you’re talking about people having different definitions of consciousness, especially if the criteria are meant as definitive rather than indicative. However presumably in many cases whether the criteria are present will be an objective question.
When you talk about whether “consciousness is an actual property of the world”, do you mean whether it’s part of ontologic base reality?
A good example of what thebestwecan means by “objectivity” is the question “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” He and I would say there’s no objective answer to this question because it depends what you mean by “sound”. I think “Is X conscious?” is a tree-falls-in-a-forest kind of question.
When you talk about whether “consciousness is an actual property of the world”, do you mean whether it’s part of ontologic base reality?
Yeah, ontologically primitive, or at least so much of a natural kind, like the difference between gold atoms and potassium atoms, that people wouldn’t really dispute the boundaries of the concept. (Admittedly, there might be edge cases where even what counts as a “gold atom” is up for debate.)
The idea of a natural kind is helpful. The fact that people mean different things by “consciousness” seems unsurprising, as that’s the case for any complex word that people have strong motives to apply (in this case because consciousness sounds valuable). It also tells us little about the moral questions we’re considering here. Do you guys agree or am I missing something?
I agree that it tells us little about the moral questions, but understanding that consciousness is a contested concept rather than a natural kind is itself a significant leap forward in the debate. (Most philosophers haven’t gotten that far.)
One thing that makes consciousness interesting is that there’s such a wide spectrum of views, from some people thinking that among current entities on Earth, only humans have consciousness, to some people thinking that everything has consciousness.
but understanding that consciousness is a contested concept rather than a natural kind is itself a significant leap forward in the debate. (Most philosophers haven’t gotten that far.)
Who do and do not agree with that, then? You and thebestwecan clearly do. Do you know the opinions of prominent philosophers in the field? For instance David Chalmers, who sounds like he is amongst these(?)
IMO, the philosophers who accept this understanding are the so-called “type-A physicalists” in Chalmers’s taxonomy. Here’s a list of some such people, but they’re in the minority. Chalmers, Block, Searle, and most other philosophers of mind aren’t type-A physicalists.
IMO, the philosophers who accept this understanding are the so-called “type-A physicalists” in Chalmers’s taxonomy.
I’m not wholly sure I understand the connection between this and denying that consciousness is a natural kind. The best I can do (and perhaps you or thebestwecan can do better? ;-) ) is:
“If consciousness is a natural kind, then the existence of that natural kind is a separate fact from the existence of such-and-such a physical brain state (and vica versa)”
You’re right that there’s probably not a strict logical relationship between those things. Also, I should note that I have a poor understanding of the variety of different type-B views. What I usually have in mind as “type B” is the view that the connection between consciousness and brain processing is only something we can figure out a posteriori, by noticing the correlation between the two. If you hold that view, it presumably means you think consciousness is a definite thing that we discover introspectively. For example, we can say we’re conscious of an apple in front of us but are not conscious of a very fast visual stimulus. Since we generally assume most of these distinctions between conscious and unconscious events are introspectively clear-cut (though some disagree), there would seem to be a fairly sharp distinction within reality itself between conscious vs unconscious? Hence, consciousness would seem more like a natural kind.
In contrast, the type-A people usually believe that consciousness is a label we give to certain physical processes, and given the complexity of cognitive systems, it’s plausible that different people would draw the boundaries between conscious vs unconscious in different places (if they care to make such a distinction at all). Daniel Dennett, Marvin Minsky, and Susan Blackmore are all type-A people and all of them make the case that the boundaries of consciousness are fuzzy (or even that the distinction between conscious and unconscious isn’t useful at all).
In theory, there could be a type-A physicalist who believes that there will turn out to be some extremely clean distinction in the brain that captures the difference between consciousness vs unconsciousness, such that almost everyone would agree that this is the right way to carve things up. In this case, the type-A person could still believe consciousness will turn out to be a natural kind.
(I’m not an expert on either the type A/B distinction or natural kinds, so apologies if I’m misusing concepts here.)
I don’t think I understand what you mean by consciousness being objective. When you mention “what processes, materials, etc. we subjectively choose to use as the criteria for consciousness”, this sounds to me as if you’re talking about people having different definitions of consciousness, especially if the criteria are meant as definitive rather than indicative. However presumably in many cases whether the criteria are present will be an objective question.
When you talk about whether “consciousness is an actual property of the world”, do you mean whether it’s part of ontologic base reality?
A good example of what thebestwecan means by “objectivity” is the question “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” He and I would say there’s no objective answer to this question because it depends what you mean by “sound”. I think “Is X conscious?” is a tree-falls-in-a-forest kind of question.
Yeah, ontologically primitive, or at least so much of a natural kind, like the difference between gold atoms and potassium atoms, that people wouldn’t really dispute the boundaries of the concept. (Admittedly, there might be edge cases where even what counts as a “gold atom” is up for debate.)
The idea of a natural kind is helpful. The fact that people mean different things by “consciousness” seems unsurprising, as that’s the case for any complex word that people have strong motives to apply (in this case because consciousness sounds valuable). It also tells us little about the moral questions we’re considering here. Do you guys agree or am I missing something?
I agree that it tells us little about the moral questions, but understanding that consciousness is a contested concept rather than a natural kind is itself a significant leap forward in the debate. (Most philosophers haven’t gotten that far.)
One thing that makes consciousness interesting is that there’s such a wide spectrum of views, from some people thinking that among current entities on Earth, only humans have consciousness, to some people thinking that everything has consciousness.
Who do and do not agree with that, then? You and thebestwecan clearly do. Do you know the opinions of prominent philosophers in the field? For instance David Chalmers, who sounds like he is amongst these(?)
IMO, the philosophers who accept this understanding are the so-called “type-A physicalists” in Chalmers’s taxonomy. Here’s a list of some such people, but they’re in the minority. Chalmers, Block, Searle, and most other philosophers of mind aren’t type-A physicalists.
I’m not wholly sure I understand the connection between this and denying that consciousness is a natural kind. The best I can do (and perhaps you or thebestwecan can do better? ;-) ) is:
“If consciousness is a natural kind, then the existence of that natural kind is a separate fact from the existence of such-and-such a physical brain state (and vica versa)”
You’re right that there’s probably not a strict logical relationship between those things. Also, I should note that I have a poor understanding of the variety of different type-B views. What I usually have in mind as “type B” is the view that the connection between consciousness and brain processing is only something we can figure out a posteriori, by noticing the correlation between the two. If you hold that view, it presumably means you think consciousness is a definite thing that we discover introspectively. For example, we can say we’re conscious of an apple in front of us but are not conscious of a very fast visual stimulus. Since we generally assume most of these distinctions between conscious and unconscious events are introspectively clear-cut (though some disagree), there would seem to be a fairly sharp distinction within reality itself between conscious vs unconscious? Hence, consciousness would seem more like a natural kind.
In contrast, the type-A people usually believe that consciousness is a label we give to certain physical processes, and given the complexity of cognitive systems, it’s plausible that different people would draw the boundaries between conscious vs unconscious in different places (if they care to make such a distinction at all). Daniel Dennett, Marvin Minsky, and Susan Blackmore are all type-A people and all of them make the case that the boundaries of consciousness are fuzzy (or even that the distinction between conscious and unconscious isn’t useful at all).
In theory, there could be a type-A physicalist who believes that there will turn out to be some extremely clean distinction in the brain that captures the difference between consciousness vs unconsciousness, such that almost everyone would agree that this is the right way to carve things up. In this case, the type-A person could still believe consciousness will turn out to be a natural kind.
(I’m not an expert on either the type A/B distinction or natural kinds, so apologies if I’m misusing concepts here.)