[chrisweekly]

Actually,

"conscience" relates to ethics and morals, whereas

"consciousness" relates to theory of mind and self-awareness;

the latter term pertains more directly to the theories of cognitive neuroscience under discussion here.

[bena]

And I really hate that they're homophones.

[epgui]

They’re not homophones…

[bena]

"Conscious" and "conscience" aren't homophones?

Sorry I didn't specify the root of both words are homophones, I figured that would be obvious from context.

[crackedbassoon]

This comment confused me so I looked up the definition of homophone[0].

Turns out it can mean two words sounding the same (definition 2) or merely sounding alike (definition 1). Personally I always thought homophones had to sound identical. But you are right, they are homophones in the broad sense.

I think they have the same root [1].

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homophone

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/usage-of-consc...

[bena]

Any difference quickly disappears once you take into account various accents and dialects. It's a lot like pin and pen. They're technically not by the strictest sense of the word homophones because there should be a slight difference in how you pronounce them, but in practice, there is no difference.