Yes I think it’s a linguistic confusion more than anything else.

To me, consciousness is not generally that you can be aware (conscious) of things around you and can react to them, lots of things can do that.

Consciousness is a shorthand for saying that something is conscious of itself, or conscious of its own consciousness. It is the meta-ability to observe its own perceptions and thoughts. And a sense of self, a sense that the observer is the same over time.

But frankly, it’s a terrible concept and my definition is plenty flawed too. In practice it is more of a moving goalpost to denote the specialness and superiority of humans over all. That thing we can’t quite put a finger on that makes us different. It is a secular euphemism for the soul. It is not very scientific.

And that is quite problematic because the privileges we ascribe to those on the wrong side of the line fall off a cliff. We rely on that line as a foundation for so much of our morals. We have seen the catastrophes that happen when a group has a different idea about the line.

I don’t have a solution to propose, it’s hard.

> It is the meta-ability to observe its own perceptions and thoughts. And a sense of self, a sense that the observer is the same over time.

Which is kind of strange because folks who achieve insight examining their own perceptions and thoughts seem to dissolve the barrier between self and not-self.