bert1

I suspect the OP was asking for theoretical motivations, not psychological ones. I say this because this is a philosophy forum, not a psychology forum...

When I'm unconscious, say from an anaesthetic, of being knocked out, or in a very deep sleep, I guess there are few possibilities as to what is going ...

But how does all of that result in consciousness? Why can't all of that happen without consciousness?

Thank you. To be clear, would you consider a thermostat to be aware of temperature in this sense?

I'd love for you to expand on this if you have time. How does a brain generate an emotion?

a,b,c, and d,e,f, and g,h,i, that constitute p, q and r must be conscious. :) The regress stops when we get to some foundation, like the quantum field...

Because the alternative options are false. Regarding my loss of consciousness under the circumstances you mention, I think what is lost is not conscio...

I can't be absolutely sure that the concept is shared. I'm pretty sure the experience isn't shared because when I stub my toe my friend doesn't say ou...

The concept is shared, not the experience.

I think there's a plausible story to be told involving a series of inferences and an abstraction. First, I stub my toe and I feel pain, I might say 'o...

Yes, I can use it as an argument for something. Consciousness is an unusual concept. The vast majority of concepts do admit of degree. That's why I me...

But I have evidence of my consciousness that no one else can have, because no one else is me. When I say panpsychism is a denial of emergentism, that'...

It's well known that Banno is a marsupial Hobbit. It is rare he is not having a poached egg on toast with vegemite, or some such abominable snack.

Yes, that's how it seems to me. Dampened consciousness is still consciousness.

That's the emergentist view. My view could perhaps be: before x can be conscious, there has to be a conscious p, q and r.

Sure, I agree there is a greying out. It's the transition from they faintest of greys to nothing at all I'm interested in. The faintest of greys is st...

That's interesting. You are still using the concept pf a threshold though, which suggests a sharp dividing line to me. If the user is not conscious of...

I don't know, you'd have to ask a biologist I guess. Prescientific concepts of life might well have included an element of consciousness. But at some ...

OK, thanks. Why can't all that happen without there being an emotion, meaning or feeling?

Panpsychism is a conclusion, not an assumption. Consider: Either panpsychism, emergentism or eliminativism Not emergentism Not eliminativism Therefore...

OK, I probably shouldn't have used the word 'subjectivity' as it has confused the issue. Here you have used the word 'conscious' in your definition of...

Yes. These are gradations in what we are conscious of. They are not gradations between being conscious of nothing at all, and being conscious of somet...

But that's to prejudice the debate. That everything must be a mechanism is itself a theory. Unfalsifiable by an empirical experiment, perhaps, but the...

Books I've particularly enjoyed: Tomorrow's Children, edited by Asimov Farmer Giles of Ham, Tolkien's best work IMO Assassin's Apprentice and sequels,...

I think it's hopeless getting other people to read books, there's something about recommending a book that immediately makes people not want to read i...

Titus Groan stayed with me a long time. Unique and very evocative.

Only very briefly! He was a guest speaker on the predecessor to this forum, and I asked him a question.

I agree! When people disagree with me they usually say that consciousness does admit of degree. It's interesting and gratifying that you share my intu...

Thank you for the clarification. We were talking at cross-purposes. Indeed, most of these I suppose only occur in brainy animals, perhaps some of them...

Sure, but I don't think that proves anything about panpsychism. Could you spell it out? Sure, brains cause behaviour. What does that imply about panps...

Very good question. If you take modern biological definitions, then it would very much appear so, yes. But if you mean by 'life' (as some do) a centre...

I'll try. I mean there are no intermediate states between x not being conscious at all, and x being conscious. As soon as x has the faintest vaguest s...

It does have a burden of proof. But so does every other theory of consciousness. We look at them all and pick the least problematic. I reckon it's pan...

Asking for objective verification of subjectivity may be asking for a square circle, an ore of nonexistium, a bucket of pure being.

That's not true of modern educated panpsychist philosophers, physicists and neuroscientists.

These are very good questions, and difficult for the panpsychist. There is no single answer to any of these questions - panpsychists differ radically....

Not at the macro level, no. There's no need, mechanical explanations (even if they are ultimately incomplete) are often what we want.

I can offer you an argument more explicitly than I have done so far. Consciousness does not admit of degree All process or functions admit of degree T...

I probably wasn't clear. I'm not disputing chance-driven evolution. I'm not an intelligent design advocate, not do I advocate for teleology on a macro...

Why any of that happens, at all. It's a description of what happens, and as such is useful, if it can be relied upon to repeat in a lawlike way, as pr...

What would qualify as a 'solid reason'?

Because the alternatives are impossible, or wildly implausible, namely, that consciousness emerges from the interfunction of severally non-conscious e...

Sure, at the mid-level description you quote there isn't. But when we ask for finer and finer details, we get to forces, and 'no further explanation i...

The difficulty with the idea of two levels of description is that it creates a dualism, and imports many of the difficulties of that. What accounts fo...

OK, this is a start. The next question is: at what point in the evolutionary process did feeling first emerge? This is a hypothesis at the moment. How...

I think I probably agree with you about that example linking feelings of heavyness to gravity. But still, that feeling of heavyness is one of the thin...

Yes I would. And I didn't change my mind. Again, I think we are speaking at cross purposes. It sounded to me as if you changed your mind, but no matte...

Absolutely it's an art. And it's a descriptive rough snapshot, and doesn't pretend (or shouldn't) to offer prescriptive certainties.

I very much doubt a lexicographer would agree with you on that.