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txrx0000 an hour ago

The article's definition of consciousness is precise, but it's not what people are referring to in most cases where the word "consciousness" is used. Of course, a word can have multiple definitions. But colloquially, when people say consciousness, we usually mean the thing that goes away when we sleep or are anesthetized. I don't think there's a much better way to define that. The contrast between the wakeful and non-wakeful state as oneself experiences from the inside is precisely what defines consciousness in the colloquial sense. It seems to be a self-defining concept because I can't even define what "experiences" means without thinking about the wakeful/non-wakeful contrast phenomena that is consciousness, and "experiences" was supposed to be a part of the definition of "consciousness" one sentence ago.

JK-Swizzle 34 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I am unsure as to what you are trying to say here. It reads to me as “the word the article discusses has a more popular homonym, but they are clearly not talking about that”.

txrx0000 7 minutes ago | parent [-]

I'm thinking out loud and pointing out the difference to avoid confusion, and also trying to invite discussion around the colloquial def, because I think the colloquial def is the most important/useful one.

sillywabbit 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Anesthesia is a rather different state than sleep.

txrx0000 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

When observed by a different conscious being, yes. But from the inside observed by oneself, it feels quite similar, besides the fact that sleep is initiated by oneself, and the wakeful state transition for sleep is more gradual than for anesthesia.

I think that distinction matters because strictly speaking, oneself only has access to one's own consciousness, and that defines one's own understanding of the word "consciousness". It's not possible for me to be you after all, and whatever inferences I make about other people being conscious is based on the fact that I experience my consciousness, and you are similar to me in some specific way (such as being, presumably, a human), therefore you must be conscious. Of course, I'm taking a materialist stance here but that's what's practical to talk about anyway.

api 23 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I had some serious surgery a few years ago and paid attention when I went under to see if I could recall anything.

Nope. You don’t exist for that time. Anesthesiologist counts down 10, 9, 8, 7, and then I was teleported to the recovery bed.

I consider it incredibly weird and very unlike sleep. Consciousness is off, instantly, then back.

2 minutes ago | parent | next [-]
[deleted]
boxed 19 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Well... memory is off at least.

XorNot 8 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

The more interesting aspect of that is that there's an element of recall implicit in that though: if someone was active, moving around and interacting according to observers then whether they were conscious during that time is heavily informed by whether they remember it later.

Quite where that line exists then is very fuzzy because while for example I feel conscious while I'm typing this, it's also clearly possible I could but then have no memory of it.