[cobraetor]

Try eliminating the following assumptions

a) Consciousness depends on affect

b) Affect is real, and not simply an imagined experience.

In other words, question the validity of the above. Are they in fact true? How do we know them to be true? Why is a feeling given more credence than hallucinations? What if all feelings are an imagined experience, one that is "programmed" into birth by the genetic material? Just because an imaginative experience is encoded genetically it shouldn't make it any more real, should it? How would humans look like to some alien species that is capable of cognition and consciousness (without being robotic, as our species' scifi literature imagines) but not affect and identity? Wouldn't they see us all acting as if suffering from some mass delusion?

[TaupeRanger]

You are using very strange definitions of terminology. Consciousness is just the word we use for the fact that a stream of experiences exists. To say it might be "imagined" is nonsensical - the experiences are there regardless, and their existence is the mystery.

[cobraetor]

You are misrepresenting my comment, which I wrote only because you said "I feel like I've learned literally nothing from any of them".

I indicated that affect, not consciousness, is imagined. Furthermore, I indicated (which you entirely overlooked) that consciousness is independent of affect. Take that as a working theory, and you just might discover something new.

Discard whatever you've read in the last 10-15 years, and start afresh; otherwise, you'll just be rehashing the same old same old.

[TaupeRanger]

I'm not misrepresenting anything. You asked "what if feelings are an imagined experience" and I responded directly to it. Feelings are a type of conscious experience. Consciousness is not independent of affect, affect is an aspect of conscious experiences. These are just the definitions of words. Nothing new is "discovered" by redefining words in this way.