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Article 7384 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: We've Been Tricked- consciousness
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Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1992 16:30:53 GMT
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In article <BwJuuE.DpD@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu 
(lincoln carr) writes:
>Although my own thoughts on this matter are by no means clear and
>distinct and by no means set in stone, I suppose that what I'm
>reaching for is the equation of consciousness with apperception.  When
>one asks "What is consciousness?"  it would seem that things like
>intelligence or reason, if these are even well-defined terms, would be
>thrown out, for surely there are many subrational beings that one
>would putatively describe as "conscious," e.g., an infant.  If
>consciousness is not rationality or a certain degree of intelligence
>and it is a well-defined term and means SOMETHING, then what is one
>left with if not apperception?  

If consciousness is nothing but perception, then the word is not useful,
because we already have the word "perception" to talk about this phenomenon.
The same can be said, I think, for consciousness as self-awareness.  Why
would we want to replace the straightforward term "self-awareness" with
the nebulous "consciousness"?

I suspect the concept behind "consciousness" is what has been called the
Cartesian Theater-- the idea of the little guy in your head who calls
himself "I", who perceives the world and his own existence.

This is certainly one of the more interesting things that goes on in
our brains, tho' perhaps we exaggerate its importance, since "we" are
precisely instances of the phenomenon...

We had might as well reserve the word "consciousness" for this, since
otherwise it has no name, and other things we could use the word for 
have names of their own.


