Yeah. The biggest thing most people miss is that the question your asking is in No way at all profound. You are asking an extremely mundane question that only appears profound as an illusion.
What you are dealing with here is in actuality a language problem. You are contemplating and asking about the intricacies of a specific vocabulary word. It is an arbitrary sounding word with a simply arbitrarily vague definition surrounding it. Who cares? This is a linguistic problem not a philosophy problem.
You think you're asking about something metaphysical or philosophical? No. It is a language quirk that's actually a trap. When you debate with someone about what is "consciousness" you have fallen into this trap. You believe you're discussing something profound, but no. What you are doing is debating about some arbitrary definition of some arbitrary word. When it goes into the details it's all about delineating what group of traits is conscious and what group of traits isn't conscious and this is not at all interesting.
I think in reality this concept doesn't exist. We think it exists because the word exists. When you read this sentence you really need to think deeply about what I'm saying here. A lot of people miss it when I say the concept doesn't exist without the word. In fact, the word is so ingrained with their psyche they can't differentiate the two.
This point of view could be applied to any word, and the extreme result is that you'd negate meaningful or useful communication, or that someone would have to be the arbiter of what is a legitimate concept or not.
Between vocabulary, commonly understood meaning, possible meaning, and actual personal experience, there are many detours and jumps. "Dog" as a word, concept/meaning, and experience, has these issues. What's not a dog, which dog are you thinking about, and does this apply to "dog" or just those specific dogs you've experienced? Etc.
Words like "consciousness", for less concrete experiences than "dog", tend to have more fog in the gaps between word and shared meaning, and between those and individual experience.
It seems like you're trying to flatten a person's curiosity about the implications of a shared concept or experience into a "mundane" phantasm about a word whose referent is either nonsensical or nonexistent to you.
I think that the gaps between word, concept, and experience, while confusing and difficult, are worthy of more respect and wonder than to just flatten them as though their existence didn't imply something potentially important and essential is happening there. Language arose because we have actual experience to share, however tricky it can be to verbalize. It doesn't work perfectly, and leads to confusion, but here we are, reading and writing.
"Consciousness" may be a word for a slippery concept/experience, but that doesn't equate to questions about consciousness being inherently semantic.
>This point of view could be applied to any word, and the extreme result is that you'd negate meaningful or useful communication, or that someone would have to be the arbiter of what is a legitimate concept or not.
False. <- see? There's a word that doesn't apply. But you're not wrong. This POV does apply to MANY words. It just goes to show how MANY debates are traps. You think you're discussing something profound but it's just vocabulary.
>Between vocabulary, commonly understood meaning, possible meaning, and actual personal experience, there are many detours and jumps. "Dog" as a word, concept/meaning, and experience, has these issues. What's not a dog, which dog are you thinking about, and does this apply to "dog" or just those specific dogs you've experienced? Etc.
Right. So your example illustrates my point. Is it profound and meaningful to spend So much time discussing what is a dog and what isn't a dog? What is the definition of the word dog? No. It's not. Same. With. Consciousness. It's not profound to discuss vocabulary.
>It seems like you're trying to flatten a person's curiosity about the implications of a shared concept or experience into a "mundane" phantasm about a word whose referent is either nonsensical or nonexistent to you.
No I'm just stating reality as it is observed. The essence of a debate about consciousness is rationally and logically speaking entirely a vocabulary problem. This isn't even an attempt to "bend" anything to lean my way. The ultimate logical interpretation of any situation involving a debate on what is consciousness and what is not conscious is a vocabulary problem. Literally. Read the last sentence.
>I think that the gaps between word, concept, and experience, while confusing and difficult, are worthy of more respect and wonder than to just flatten them as though their existence didn't imply something potentially important and essential is happening there. Language arose because we have actual experience to share, however tricky it can be to verbalize. It doesn't work perfectly, and leads to confusion, but here we are, reading and writing.
Made up concepts also arise from words. Gods, goddesses, spirit, monster, hell, dryad, minitour, Cerberus. The existence of made up concepts logically speaking means that it's possible "consciousness" is a made up concept.
>"Consciousness" may be a word for a slippery concept/experience, but that doesn't equate to questions about consciousness being inherently semantic.
It does. Each question about consciousness is inherently relating the word to another semantic word. This is literally what's going on.
Yes. For example "randomness." Seems mundane, but this simple intuitive concept can't actually be formally defined. I have yet to see an actual algorithm for a truly random number generator.
The profoundness comes from the fact that on the intuitive level we are all hyper aware of what random means. But on the formal level we have no idea what it is.
This assumes that language is fundamental to all understanding. May well be true, and it probably is according to Wittgenstein, but it is just one of many perspectives, and I'm not convinced.
No, I don't assume this. Concepts and understanding can exist independent of language. But sometimes concepts and understanding arise ONLY because of language. I am saying "consciousness" is a specific case of the later.
However, what makes some concepts mundane and others profound? Is that up to an individual to decide, based on, for example, taste? Or is there some objective notion?
Because we know the underlying model. We are well aware of it. We aren't aware of what it is in the sense that we cant describe the definition in English but we are well aware of it because we can look at something and classify it as either conscious or not conscious.
First off we know the concept lies on a gradient. At the left end we have a rock. Clearly not conscious. At the right end we have a human. Clearly the human is conscious.
You can imagine what are things that categorically exist on that gradient and in between the two extremes mentioned above. You have fish as more "conscious" then rocks and dogs or dolphins as more "conscious" then fish.
The word consciousness puts a hard line on that gradient. Somewhere on that gradient is the line and on the right side of the line you are conscious and on the left side of the line you are not conscious. Debating about consciousness is simply debating the location of that line.
Is it more leaning towards the rock? Is it in the center of the gradient? Is it closer to the human? Who cares? As you move up and down the gradient you get things with more traits associated with being conscious and things with less traits associated with being conscious. A debate about that vocabulary word is simply picking the group of traits that demarcates a transition. Such a demarcation is a completely arbitrary choice. Not profound at all.
In the end you are simply grouping traits together and assigning it as a definition to a word. So a fish is conscious because it moves, and it swims, it feels pain, and it can think, but a rock is not conscious because it lacks those traits. The grouping is arbitrary and thus the concept is arbitrary and arises from the word.
What you are dealing with here is in actuality a language problem. You are contemplating and asking about the intricacies of a specific vocabulary word. It is an arbitrary sounding word with a simply arbitrarily vague definition surrounding it. Who cares? This is a linguistic problem not a philosophy problem.
You think you're asking about something metaphysical or philosophical? No. It is a language quirk that's actually a trap. When you debate with someone about what is "consciousness" you have fallen into this trap. You believe you're discussing something profound, but no. What you are doing is debating about some arbitrary definition of some arbitrary word. When it goes into the details it's all about delineating what group of traits is conscious and what group of traits isn't conscious and this is not at all interesting.
I think in reality this concept doesn't exist. We think it exists because the word exists. When you read this sentence you really need to think deeply about what I'm saying here. A lot of people miss it when I say the concept doesn't exist without the word. In fact, the word is so ingrained with their psyche they can't differentiate the two.