Googling Wiki articles, we find that:
consciousness is awareness;
awareness is consciousness.
Other synonyms, like knowledge and experience, are used. I think that any attempted definition of consciousness fails either because it uses synonyms or because it describes a process, such as a kind of behavior or a cerebral interaction, that could, without self-contradiction, be described as unconscious.
Can you fill in the blank of "X is -" in such a way that:
you avoid synonyms of consciousness;
a hearer or reader of the completed proposition says, "That is what we mean by 'consciousness' or 'X is consciousness.'"
Although we cannot describe whiteness to a permanently blind man, we need not describe consciousness to a permanently unconscious man.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
A man who is, unfortunately, in a permanent coma, would be unaware of how he had once been conscious and that other men are conscious.
But are coma victims capable of at least dreaming? I have thought that dreams is how the sleeping mind thinks, even if not clearly aware of itself.
Sean
Sean,
We say that a sleeping man is unconscious and yet that he dreams. There is some ambiguity here.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Ambiguous is right! Sometimes I must have dreamed BUT I had no memory of what I had dreamed about after waking up.
Sean
Sean,
I think that we have to say that, while asleep, we are unconscious of our external environment but that, while dreaming, we are conscious of the objects that we dream about.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That I can agree with.
Sean
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