I didn't simply define it (arbitrarily) in such a way that a contradiction follows. I pointed out its necessary preconditions, which are that it requires a particular form and means of awareness.
First you claimed to define consciousness; now, you claim that you weren’t really defining it, but rather “pointing out its necessary precondition”…which is not the same thing as a definition. It matters little; for what you have done here, as well as in the Evolution thread, is merely to <u>describe</u> consciousness (you will probably try to justify this practice by claiming that a mere description is really a higher-status thing – an “ostensive definition”!).
A description is not the same as a definition. As for “necessary preconditions”, that could only happen if we move beyond a mere description (even if that mere description is given a deep-dish, high-falutin’ name like “ostensive definition.” We know that consciousness and biological organisms accompany each other; no one knows anything beyond that: no one knows HOW; no one knows WHY. Not even those great neuroscientists whose “incontrovertible evidence” you keep promising to cite, but somehow never get around to doing so.
Are you seriously suggesting that a person can be conscious in no particular form and by no particular means?!?
There are different degrees of consciousness: “self-consciousness”; “attention” (i.e., conscious of something else but not yourself); dreaming; “sleeping” (which is different from complete lack of consciousness).
Proof rests on concrete evidence.
Math and logic are replete with proofs with no concrete evidence. Either the concrete evidence is missing entirely or it’s simply unnecessary. No one has to test the Pythagorean Theorem concretely by drawing right triangles in the sand with a stick (like the slave in Plato’s “Meno”). There is no “concrete evidence” proving the Law of Contradiction, or the Law of Excluded Middle.
Knowledge isn't based on arbitrary definitions.
There are different kinds of knowledge. Mathematical knowledge can certainly be based on arbitrary definitions. Lots of non-Euclidean geometry is based on arbitrary definitions (“Let’s pretend that NO two lines, drawn through two points, are parallel”; or, “Let’s pretend that ALL lines, drawn through two points, are parallel.”)
You couldn't simply say, "Good people do not commit murders; my client is a good person; therefore, he didn't commit this murder."
Quite untrue. Your defense attorney adjusts the kind of argument he uses to suit the kinds of arguments used by the prosecution. If the prosecution presents concrete incriminating evidence, your attorney either throws that evidence into doubt or presents concrete evidence to the contrary. If the prosecution presents arguments based on your character, the defense brings up arguments based on your character (such as witnesses to your character, who will attest under oath that “He is a good person / good people don’t commit murder / ergo, WD could not have committed murder.” That would be sufficient to establish your innocence if your goodness or lack thereof were the gravamen of the trial.
Claude, are you using "believe" in the sense of "strongly suspect" (e.g., "I don't know for a fact that he murdered her, but I believe he did."). If you are, then I would agree with you. I was using "believe" in the stronger sense of a "claim to knowledge."
Outside of math and logic, where we get to invent the definitions, no knowledge is completely certain. Outside of math and logic, all belief is of the “strongly suspect” variety.
I don't think the mere ability to challenge and exert power of other species is sufficient to establish consciousness. And, although intelligence is the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge, it is doubtful that plants possess 'knowledge' in any normally understood sense of that term.
There is no “normally understood” sense of the term “knowledge.” You are simply applying that term as it is experienced by an organism with self-consciousness, such as human beings.
I agree that plants are not automatons or machines; they're clearly living organisms, but even though they're able to interact with their environment in a goal-directed, self-sustaining manner, that doesn't mean that they are consciously aware of their environment.
It means precisely that. You confuse your general description with a definition; then you claim this “definition” has higher status than empirically verified knowledge. I’ll stick with the plant experts on this one.
Not true. Again, I'm not simply tendering an arbitrary definition.
That’s true. You are in fact tendering a general description of human self-consciousness, which you confuse for a definition. Then you move beyond that entirely by claiming that this general description gives you enough knowledge to tell us something about “preconditions.”
Consciousness is a faculty of living organisms
That’s a description, not a definition.
(and I would further restrict it to animal life)
Unwarranted assumption contradicting publicly verifiable facts about plant behavior by scientists who are experts in this field.
Prior to the emergence of life on earth, there was no evidence of living organisms, nor of entities that possess consciousness.
Huh? “Prior to the emergence of life on earth, there was no evidence of living organisms”? Profound. I like this one, too: “Prior to the emergence of wheat, there was no evidence of wheat products such as bread or pasta.”
I said that we know consciousness directly through introspection.
Yes, indeed. That’s what you said.
But we can know it indirectly in other human beings and animals by extrospection -- by observing sufficient similarities to warrant the inference that they too are conscious and have feelings.
“To know directly” and “to know indirectly” are two completely different ways of knowing. To those with normal color vision, we know the color red directly through a subjective experience; we know ultraviolet through inference.
We also know that once an animal dies, its physical processes cease and it no longer exhibits any evidence of being conscious.
That in no way means that consciousness has disappeared. It simply means that consciousness – whatever it is – was acting through the animal, making itself known to you by means of the animal. When a TV broadcast station dies, it ceases to function; the television signals it broadcast are still out there, radiating away.
Again, a consciousness requires a form and a means of perception, both of which cannot exist without a material basis in reality.
Again, matter and mind are polar opposites; they complement each other in Existence. With the exception of certain entities inexactly referred to as “particles”, matter requires the existence of consciousness in order to BE matter. All qualities, for example – hard, soft, green, red, loud, quiet, etc. – exist only as qualities to consciousness. Nothing is objectively “green” or “hard”. To some particles, neutrinos for example, nothing really exists: it’s all just empty space.
Really! So inanimate matter is conscious?? The sun, the moon, the stars are all conscious? Remarkable.
I’m glad you think so, but I didn’t say that. Once more: You have zero proof – except your own definitions – that matter can exist without consciousness…this doesn’t mean that matter is conscious; it means that matter requires its complement, consciousness, in order to BE matter.
Question begging. How do you know matter can exist independently of consciousness?
Because I see that it can? Hello!
No, you don’t see that it can. You BELIEVE that it can. Belief is something very different from perception.
Consciousness is "defined" ostensively.
“Ostensive definition” = “mere description.” This is useful in the primitive beginnings of a discipline when you don’t have any actual knowledge about the thing you’re trying to study. It’s one of the hallmarks of pre-scientific societies that its members forever remain in the grip of ostensive definitions. It’s one of the hallmarks of scientific societies that its members move beyond them to actual empirical knowledge of the thing they are studying.
The point I was making is that consciousness a subjective manifestation OF THE BRAIN AND CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM.
Brain and nervous system are simply the means by which this other thing called consciousness makes itself known. There is no identity between brain and consciousness, nor does the material brain have a higher metaphysical status than non-material consciousness. Without consciousness, there are no “sense organs”; just dead wiring.
Without light, there is no such thing as “red.” If you take a red apple into a darkened room, it’s incorrect to say “It’s a red apple but the lights happen to be out.” If the lights are out, the red no longer exists. If consciousness is gone, even the term “sense organs” is a contradiction: there’s nothing to sense and nothing to do the sensing.
I'm not sure what your point is. If a direct experience of consciousness is not sufficient to know "what" it is, then what kind of information do you require? What would satisfy you?
Only someone ensnared by his own arbitrary “definitions” could doubt that there was something to know about some fact of reality beyond one’s mere experience of it.
You’re like the cleric in the play “Galileo” by Bertolt Brecht. Galileo shows the multiple moons of Jupiter to the cleric through his telescope. The cleric says, “Yes, I see them; but the real question is, are they logically necessary?” Since the definition of “Jupiter” does not involve the predicate “has multiple moons”, one is therefore entitled, according to this brand of nominalism, to ignore the empirical finding. This is what you did with the plant article above, as well as with several challenges I made to you to provide empirical evidence regarding consciousness. Your subjective experiences – whether you refer to them as “ostensive definitions” or not – don’t count as knowledge.
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