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The How and Why Of Self-Consciousness "Sticky Please"

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arg-fallbackName="A Higher Enlightenment"/>
So, in an attempt to answer this question, we've spoken about or at least mentioned things like introspective thoughts, awareness, higher intelligence, personality, being aware of having been sleeping, being aware of being aware, etc. The first suggestion was that introspective thought was the difference between consciousness and self-consciousness.

You've denied that introspective thought was enough for self-consciousness, claiming that animals were 'a clearly defined' example of something having introspective thought but not having self-consciousness. When pressed on this matter though, it turns out that your claims about animals are what we call gratuitous assertions. That is, only to say that - thus far - they have not been properly argued for. Now, do not get me wrong, this is not necessarily a problem - especially at this juncture - because we're very early on in the discussion. However - and this is key - if a claim cannot be verified/falsified, then it must be a rational one at a bare minimum. It must be a valid conclusion following from a major(primary) and a minor(secondary) premiss. That's what logical arguments are all about. That is especially true when one denies the very definition of a commonly used notion such as "introspective thoughts". These are thoughts that an individual has about themselves. One cannot have thoughts about oneself without being aware of oneself.

So, either being aware of oneself is not equivalent to self-awareness(which is absurd to put it mildly) or self awareness is not equivalent to self-consciousness. It seems that you're claiming the latter - that self-consciousness requires being aware that one is aware as compared/contrasted to just being aware.

Would you agree with this summary, thus far?
Yes I would agree very much so that one must be aware of their own awareness in order to have self-consciousness.
 
arg-fallbackName="creativesoul"/>
Well, there's your answer!

The difference between consciousness and self-consciousness is the individuals' awareness of their own awareness.

Now, what's the logical reasoning supporting that conclusion? That's where the real work of doing philosophy comes into play.

A question for you: What determines whether or not an individual has consciousness and/or self-consciousness respectively? I mean, is that determined by how we're using the words, or do they exist completely independent of our words?
 
arg-fallbackName="A Higher Enlightenment"/>
Well, there's your answer!

The difference between consciousness and self-consciousness is the individuals' awareness of their own awareness.

Now, what's the logical reasoning supporting that conclusion? That's where the real work of doing philosophy comes into play.

A question for you: What determines whether or not an individual has consciousness and/or self-consciousness respectively? I mean, is that determined by how we're using the words, or do they exist completely independent of our words?
Well if our words are language, And elephants and many other animals that are said to be self-conscious, but don’t speak any language. Than surely it exists independent of words.

As far as I’m concerned what determines whether or not an individual has consciousness and or self-consciousness is merely how consciousness evolved with intelligence and experiences to give rise eventually to an awareness of our own existence, and that we are alive and aware.

And this first starts with the understanding of the difference between being awake and and asleep. And this takes realizing that we are awake.

That requires an experience of something that would allow you to realize that you were once sleeping. Then you must understand and be aware of that experience. No what could that experience be.

And do animals that are said to be self conscious possess this knowledge? Or are they merely self aware, with the inability to understand that they are.

Being conscious takes being awake by its very definition. But just because something is aware of it’s self, does that give them the ability to understand that they are awake?
 
arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
Steven Novella said:
What Is Consciousness? Another Reply to Kastrup

This does not mean, of course, that I can explain exactly how the brain generates the subjective experience of consciousness. It is important to separate the question of how the brain causes consciousness from if the brain causes consciousness. The evidence for the brain as the sole cause of the mind is, in my opinion, overwhelming. The how is a bit more tricky. I personally am on the fence between two materialist positions. One position is that the “hard problem” of consciousness, as Chalmers calls it, is really a non-problem – it is simply made of all the easy problems of neuroscience. We are making good progress in figuring out the neural correlates to the different aspects of conscious experience – motor planning, executing motor functions, primary and secondary sensory processing, visual processing, etc. The more abstract functions are more challenging, but we are making steady progress. It’s possible that once we solve all these individual questions there will be nothing left – in other words, our subjective experience will be made up of all the subsets of consciousness without the need for there to be any other process that is itself consciousness. In this view consciousness is simply the real time processing of sensory input and internal communication and monitoring.

Richard Carrier said:
What Does It Mean to Call Consciousness an Illusion?

So here’s the antidote. Consciousness is certainly an illusion, in the same way colors and mirages are illusions. But illusions still exist. To confuse “that mirage is an illusion” with “that mirage doesn’t exist” is a semantic error that (inexplicably) even many expert philosophers are making here. A mirage exists. Indeed, it even physically exists outside the mind: it’s refracted light on a radiated heat differential, forming a pattern similar to reflections from water. It just isn’t water. The illusion is as to what it is, not that it exists. Colors are a good example: nothing in the world has a color. Nothing is red or green. Our brains made that up as a way to represent a much more complicated fact (patterns of photon-frequency reflections and refractions and the like) in a simple enough way to make practical use of. But that does not mean colors don’t exist. They are illusions, yes. We are being tricked into thinking things in the world have those colors, and it took us centuries of sophisticated science to discover that fact. Even Newton believed colors were things in the world, that light was “colored.” But it was later shown that light is just photons vibrating at certain frequencies; color is then manufactured in the brain as a fiction to represent that. But this still means colors are real; the brain really is inventing them, you really are experiencing them. That is in fact the whole point of colors: if they didn’t exist, we couldn’t make use of them in the way we do.
 
arg-fallbackName="creativesoul"/>
As far as I’m concerned what determines whether or not an individual has consciousness and or self-consciousness is merely how consciousness evolved with intelligence and experiences to give rise eventually to an awareness of our own existence, and that we are alive and aware.

And this first starts with the understanding of the difference between being awake and asleep.
Are you claiming that consciousness has evolved into self-consciousness by starting with understanding the difference between being awake and being asleep? Surely, I've misunderstood, but that's basically what you've said here. The post partially quoted above added confusion. We're in dire need of clarification. I suggest keeping this as simple as we can.

It seems we're in agreement that consciousness and self-consciousness are the sorts of things that can and do exist independently of the terms "consciousness" and "self-consciousness". However, I strongly suspect that you and I have very different reasons for believing that. I like that you've invoked evolutionary terminology. On my view, any and all notions of consciousness worthy of consideration must be amenable to evolutionary terms. Are you okey with that as well, because it seems you are. I mean, does your use of evolutionary terms here indicate your belief that consciousness has evolved over time into the ability for us to become aware of our own self-awareness? This seems to be in line with some of what you've aid thus far...

Is it?
 
arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
I think the elephant in the room here is that consciousness does not arise naturally from non-life.
 
arg-fallbackName="A Higher Enlightenment"/>
I think the elephant in the room here is that consciousness does not arise naturally from non-life.
Not only does it arise naturally in life, but it is most certainly impossible, to arise at all in non-living things. However this is probably better suited for a different thread
 
arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
Not only does it arise naturally in life, but it is most certainly impossible, to arise at all in non-living things. However this is probably better suited for a different thread
I dont see at all how what Im saying belongs in a different thread. It's like saying you want to know how to give a woman an orgasm but you don't want to know how to fuck!
 
arg-fallbackName="A Higher Enlightenment"/>
Are you claiming that consciousness has evolved into self-consciousness by starting with understanding the difference between being awake and being asleep? Surely, I've misunderstood, but that's basically what you've said here. The post partially quoted above added confusion. We're in dire need of clarification. I suggest keeping this as simple as we can.

It seems we're in agreement that consciousness and self-consciousness are the sorts of things that can and do exist independently of the terms "consciousness" and "self-consciousness". However, I strongly suspect that you and I have very different reasons for believing that. I like that you've invoked evolutionary terminology. On my view, any and all notions of consciousness worthy of consideration must be amenable to evolutionary terms. Are you okey with that as well, because it seems you are. I mean, does your use of evolutionary terms here indicate your belief that consciousness has evolved over time into the ability for us to become aware of our own self-awareness? This seems to be in line with some of what you've aid thus far...

Is it?
This is exactly in line as to what I am saying! This goes hand-in-hand with your previous assumption that I claim that self-awareness and self consciousness are two different things. Sounds very counterintuitive, but when understanding the following it makes sense.

Being awake and conscious of things, including yourself, does not mean you are aware that you are awake.
 
arg-fallbackName="A Higher Enlightenment"/>
What is the fucking point!!!
I hope I am right in assuming what this response here is referring too.
Are you asking the point of this entire conversation? If so then I can assure you that this thread is about Consciousness and Self-Consciousness, What do they both require and why they are so different yet linked at the same time.
 
arg-fallbackName="creativesoul"/>
This is exactly in line as to what I am saying! This goes hand-in-hand with your previous assumption that I claim that self-awareness and self consciousness are two different things. Sounds very counterintuitive, but when understanding the following it makes sense.

Being awake and conscious of things, including yourself, does not mean you are aware that you are awake.
Do not waste time with people like Led Zeppelin. They are not here for the same reasons that I am, and that you seem to be - to acquire knowledge and/or better understanding of what consciousness is.
 
arg-fallbackName="creativesoul"/>
If the question is about what consciousness requires, then we are faced with at least two different ways to take that claim. Are we talking about what the very existence of consciousness requires, or what consciousness consists of - at it's core?

These are very different sorts of questions about very different sorts of things. The former is asking about everything that must be the case in order for consciousness to emerge. The latter is asking about the elementary constituents of consciousness. This could be roughly understood by thinking about it in terms akin to the ingredients of an apple pie; whereas the apple pie is consciousness and it's ingredients are the elemental constituents thereof.

If consciousness requires life, and life requires water, then consciousness requires water.<-----that's an argument pertaining to the former interpretation.

It makes much less sense to say that consciousness consists of water.
 
arg-fallbackName="creativesoul"/>
I dont see at all how what Im saying belongs in a different thread
The issue at hand is not about how consciousness requires life. The topic is not about that. We all know that life is required for consciousness. What belongs in the thread is germane and/or relevant to the issues under consideration. Issues that are not do not belong in the thread.

That's how.

:cool:
 
arg-fallbackName="creativesoul"/>
It's like saying you want to know how to give a woman an orgasm but you don't want to know how to fuck!
This presupposes that all cases of bringing a woman to orgasm requires fucking. That's not the case at all. Rather, that presupposition is falsified by what's happened, what is currently happening somewhere(lucky folks), and what will most certainly continue to happen so long as women are having orgasms by other means. I do not see that stopping any time soon.

;)
 
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arg-fallbackName="creativesoul"/>
Being awake and conscious of things, including yourself, does not mean you are aware that you are awake.
This looks like a contradiction of what you've said earlier.

You're using the term "conscious" in at least two distinctly different senses here. What I mean is that sometimes you use it as a synonym for being awake, and at other times it's used as a synonym for being aware. Being awake is not the same thing as being aware. Then, you make claims like the above, which to you might make perfect sense, but to me are unnecessarily confusing at best, incoherent(self-contradictory) at worst. That is all as a result of the equivocation(the way you've used the term "conscious" to mean different things throughout).

It is against the rules of logical argument(valid inference) to use the same term in two different senses within the same discussion(or argument, should there be one). That is especially the case when the term names the topic. I suggest you keep this in mind and reconsider some of the things we've discussed. It will sharpen your understanding.

There are ways to check whether or not an author is equivocating terms. Substitution exercises suffice. If one is using a term correctly, then we can take a piece of their writing, swap each use of the term with the definition thereof without meaningful loss(and still make perfect sense). This practice shows that you're equivocating the term "conscious" by using it to mean awareness sometimes and being awake at others. Being awake is not equivalent to being aware. Thus, if consciousness is one, it cannot be the other, and vice versa.

The burden of correcting this is on your shoulders. Not that big a deal really. Just pick one, stay consistent, and see where it goes.

:cool:
 
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