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by nicoburns 590 days ago
> It's the secular word for "soul", but at least the religious people have some ideas about what their woowoo nonsense terminology means.

The fact that I experience anything at all (as opposed to being an unthinking being as we assume robots or machines to be) seems like something to me. I can't explain what it is, but it seems different to anything else I observe in the world.
1 comments
NoMoreNicksLeft 590 days ago
> The fact that I experience anything at all (as opposed to being an unthinking being as we assume robots or machines to be) seems like something to me.

The roomba robot doesn't experience, it just goes through its routine. You're more sophisticated (a robot made out of meat), so the behaviors and internal state are more sophisticated. Your "experience" is just one of many illusions you are prone too. You can go look up some of them that it's possible for you to be aware of, they're pretty crazy.

The statement I quoted is just another wording of "of course I have consciousness!".

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nicoburns 590 days ago
The fact that it's possible for me to be aware of anything at all is interesting though, and definitional of conciousness. It's possible the roomba's also experience things, but we generally assume that they don't.

This is entirely separate from whether one's perceptions are an accurate representation of reality, or whether one's experiences correspond to the parts of the brain that respond to things.

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NoMoreNicksLeft 587 days ago
> The fact that it's possible for me to be aware of anything at all is interesting though, and definitional of conciousness.

"it's possible for me to be aware of anything" <--- restating your premise. Not evidence that your premise is true. Your definition of consciousness is circular.

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nicoburns 587 days ago
Everything in philosophy (and life in general) is grounded in base beliefs that are assumed rather than justified with reason.

If you don't believe that you have experiences of any kind then there is indeed no point in us discussing things further.

If you do believe that you have experiences of some kind, then I can tell you that I am taking to be definitional of consciousness - that when I say "conciousness", that's what I mean - and we can start from there.

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