From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!usenet.ucs.indiana.edu!silver.ucs.indiana.edu!lcarr Fri Oct 30 15:17:33 EST 1992
Article 7390 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!usenet.ucs.indiana.edu!silver.ucs.indiana.edu!lcarr
>From: lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr)
Subject: Re: We've Been Tricked- consciousness
Message-ID: <BwpGr9.Dx8@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
Sender: news@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: silver.ucs.indiana.edu
Organization: Indiana University
References: <nijmanm.719758335@hpas7> <BwJuuE.DpD@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Oct23.163053.6252@spss.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1992 01:42:45 GMT
Lines: 38

In article <1992Oct23.163053.6252@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:

>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"?

First, I didn't say straightforward "perception," I said
"apperception," or the perception of one's own thoughts.  A camera
could, by some definitions, be said to "perceive" but very few would
ever claim that it perceives its own perceptions like a human being
seems to do.  

>
>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.

Immanuel Kant formulated it also in the transcendental idea of the
soul.  By "soul" he meant the fundamental heuristic of all (developed)
people that they are single, immutable "I"'s and not, e.g., a
collection of things.  I agree with Kant in that humans make this
assumption, but I'm not so sure that it would be necessary for every
rational being to make this assumption.  I think that one (or many,
depending upon where one draws boundaries) could apperceive without
making this assumption.  If this is so, then my definition of
consciousness is not bound up with the "Cartesian Theater."  Hmmm, on
reading over your response again, I'm also not sure that we're in
disagreement.  My only claim has been that consciousness =
apperception, or the perception of one's own thoughts.  I don't really
see anything in your letter that contradicts this claim.

-- 
Lincoln R. Carr, Computer Scientist-Philosopher    lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
"Treat all rational autonomous moral agents, whether in the form of yourself
or another, never as means solely, but always as ends in themselves."
                  Immanuel Kant, from "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals"


