Consciousness

This blog addresses philosophical questions, like the nature of consciousness, that are raised by Poul Anderson's works. I now think that consciousness is a property of organisms with central nervous systems but not an empirical property like size, shape, weight, colour or chemical composition. We do not observe consciousness but we do know about it in two other ways. First, we experience it. Secondly, we observe conscious behaviour, including linguistic behaviour. An organism's consciousness is its observations of everything else.

"Consciousness" is an abstract noun derived from an adjective, not a concrete noun denoting an entity or substance. "Soul" is objectified subjectivity. When an organism dies, its behaviour, including its conscious behaviour, ceases. None of the organism's properties is a substance that will continue to exist after the organism has ceased. This is my best attempt yet to address the philosophical mind-body problem.

An artefact can be conscious if it duplicates the functions of an organism with a central nervous system.