[Edman274]

A standardized unit of measure is almost definitionally a label of convenience, what? Why was there no concept of a meter until the 1790s? It was determined by a council of people, does that sound like a truth of the universe?

[dtj1123]

A label is distinct from a definition. Contrast that with "tall" or "short", which are entirely context dependent and used entirely for convenience.

Words like "just", "free", "fast", "fuzzy" fall into the second category. Perhaps "conscious" too.

The difference is the presence of a strict definition that depends upon a physical absolute. I can point to a metre. Suggesting that it's nothing more than a label is idiotic.

[Tadpole9181]

This is being intentionally obtuse and you know it.

A meter is the same anywhere in the universe. If it's not, it's not a meter.

The defintion of "fat" changes based on any 3 people in the room. A handful of people would struggle to form a consensus on if all people, dogs, mice, worms, and/or bacteria are conscious.

[Edman274]

If you take the strategy that you will create a definition, create a label for that definition, and then say that any deviations from the defintion that was chosen makes usage of the label incorrect, then yes, it's the same everywhere in the universe -- according to fiat, and I don't believe that that negates that it is a label, just that validity of usage of the label derives from the perceived authority of the labeller. God didn't come down from on high and say that a meter is the length light travels in 1/299792458th of the time for 9192631770 cycles of radiation of Cesium 133. People in rooms chose that it would be based on the circumference of the Earth with a line passing through Paris, France (how convenient), and if there were an academy in the 1790s that invented the concept of "fat", and "fat" means a BMI exceeding 30, then fat would be true everywhere in the universe too (BMI after all is defined as a ratio of height, measured in meters to weight, measured in kilograms, which are both fundamental SI units), and there would be no ambiguity.

People are still coming up with definitions of consciousness and then those definitions end up being attacked by others who disagree with the foundation of the definition, which is - if you will recall - also what happened with the meter, over the course of centuries, until it was very recently redefined to be "unambiguous", but arbitrary. This was possible because few people had any particular emotional investment in the definition of a meter, and it is probable that consciousness will be eventually defined to mean that only humans can be conscious, which may be dissatisfying but would be true throughout the universe, like a meter. If the question then becomes "what defines a human" and "why a human", then I ask, why 1/299792458 of a second?

[Tadpole9181]

A meter is a meter. Over 30 BMI is over 30 BMI. Call those whatever you want, they are objective and measurable.

Concepts like the parent's "fat" example are cultural relatives. Someone can be called "fat" despite actively being proportionally skinnier or having a lower BMI.

But even that has at least a basis in the physical world. A skeleton can't be colloquially fat.

The root problem is that "consciousness" does not even have that. It's metaphysical and has no ability to be measured or observed or confirmed by an outside observer. Because even if it did not exist, the object claiming it would still be claiming it. And objects that do not claim it may in fact have it.

While the top comment may have used poor examples, it feels remarkably uncharitable to actually suggest "what is consciousness" is an equivalent discussion to "how long should a meter be?"

If you define consciousness as "being human", you would just have someone asking a new question - what is "fooblefobble?" Where "fooblefobble" is what we mean when we talk about consciousness today. The question doesn't get answered by being arbitrary in this context, you just necessitate a new word.