bert1

All definitions are capable if being wrong as they all may incorrectly describe usage. On the other hand, some hypotheses are not falsìiable except by...

What is a counterfactual definition?

Apo thinks: A system, typically a brain, is conscious iff it creates a model of it's environment it uses to make predictions. Consciousness is the act...

Your views. Thanks for explaining further.

I was just asking, because I'm interested, if you intended your statement to be chiefly conceptual, or emprical, or something else. I can't quite see ...

Are you offering this more as a definition or a theory? Or perhaps more of a conceptual clarification (which I guess is closer to definition)? Or some...

The claim is not that they feel the same kinds of things as humans necessarily, it's that they feel something at all. Insects are conscious, but they ...

I think that presumption is wrong in the context of panpsychism. I suspect that's not what most panpsychists mean.

I haven't read it, but from what you quote it's almost certainly literal. Panpsychists literally think that, in some sense or other, everything is con...

Many thanks fdrake. That looks like a very interesting paper. I'll process it and reply. Hopefully soon.

Identity aside, we can be sure that there is consciousness. I don't particularly like Descartes' formulation. It's a datum that must be accounted for ...

It would be a cluster concept if none of those 'types of conscious states' had one essential defining feature. But they do. They're all phenomenally c...

Yes, I think consciousness is present in deep sleep. But: I don't think that's persuasive. The objcetion would presumably be that the brain remains re...

Yes, I agree in general. However I wasn't asked for arguments, I was asked for evidence, and that's what I want this thread to be primarily about. And...

Right. That's pretty much the conclusion I came to, I think. So we need a definition, or theory, to guide what we are looking for. And then the stuff ...

Oh it's a disaster for panpsychism! Great post from fdrake though, many thanks.

Unfortunately not! If it were that easy the philosophy of mind would be over long ago. But we (perhaps) infer consciousness in other humans from their...

Maybe, but even that sentence is theory-laden. It's stipulating it's a process. And I'm doubtful that earliest thinkers about consciousness did necess...

I quite like that. Is it a definition or a theory? if you were a lexicographer, would you consider writing that in your dictionary you are authoring?

Well yes, I did wonder if my framing was not helpful. I gave it because I was specifically asked for "evidence". So I drew the first analogy that came...

Righto, OK, thanks. That sounds like you are open to the possibility of panpsychism. Is that right? It also sounds like you might be a mysterian like ...

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. In any case it's not my job to define 'experience' by fiat. The definition, or concept of consciousness, I take to...

Consciousness is the capacity to experience. A model of the world used to make predictions is a model of the world used to make predictions. The one i...

But the model isn't consciousness

Hence!

Yes, that's what I understand Apo to have been saying for a while. I have no particular objection to that narrative as the origin of a complex self th...

I think that's a very interesting point, and I think we've talked about it before. It may well be that a change that matters is a necessary condition ...

I've set out my own views numerous times on the forums over the years, but I'll do so again at some point if you really want me to. I'm also aware tha...

The capacity to experience. Yes Yes Yes Yes The existence/non-existence switch. Or the something/nothing switch. I'm a panpsychist.

Could you explain Apo's point to me?

It does feel like something to do that, but not because doing that peculiarly necessitates feeling like something. It feels like something because pan...

The self isn't consciousness. Again, why can't this self-anchored modelling happen without consciousness?

But why is any experience at all correlated with that? Why can't that happen without an experience with it?

No! But it's an interesting question.

It seems to me that consciousness, conceptually, is exactly something on/off. Something either has experiences or it doesn't, I don't see a middle gro...

Yeah I see, the meaning of the figure of speech is opaque to some, and unhelpful in getting the concept across sometimes.

What is it like to be a football? What are you thinking of? Round (or oval if you're a septic), inflatable, ect? Is that what you mean?

To be clear, if I had a pill that would stop you being autistic, I would give it to you. I have no problem at all with you disliking it and I hope you...

Well, sort of. You could maybe develop a medication or surgery or something that turn people from being autistic to neurotypical, but such a thing cou...

What are you calling good traits? Can you list a few? And the bad? Can you list a few of those? Just so I know what you mean. There are autistic peopl...

Yes, and it's bad when it does. Children grow up in ways their parents don't like, and parents disown them. My mum thought I was fab until I grew up a...

Not to you, clearly. But many people have found it extremely helpful.

He's speaking to a group of parents, not an autistic individual. It's critically important, sans a 'cure', for parents to not think their kids are cra...

Can you explain what you perceive as naivite among autistic people who feel OK about being autistic? Is it that they tell you you can feel fine about ...

What about children?

The origins of a more positive narrative around autism can be found in Jim Sinclair's seminal presentation to parents of autistic children called "Don...

This is just the principle, applicable to anyone, that it is hard to understand people who are different from ourselves. It's not peculiar to autistic...

So in terms of social policy, what approach should society take if a 'cure' is discovered? You and I might be on opposing sides of the debate by the s...

He thinks it's a property, like spin charge and mass

Sure, disability is a different kind of minority. But if autistics were in the majority, neurotypicals would be disabled. They may even be forcibly de...