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Comment by crimsonalucard | Hacker News Reader

We can't even properly define consciousness. Why ask whether or not something exists when we're not even sure what the word consciousness is referring too.

Consciousness is similar to other loaded/ambiguous words in the English language like "spirituality." Everybody has a different perception of what it is, and nobody can really define it. Lots of female hipsters still like to toss the word "spirituality" around while never really knowing what the hell it means.

"Consciousness" on the other hand has a more scholarly philosophical flavor. If you want to get into a meaningless pseudo-scientific discussion with no logical end (and beginning), "consciousness" is the perfect word to guarantee things will go nowhere. Like this article, for example.

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> We can't even properly define consciousness.

There might be something fundamental preventing a definition to emerge. E.g., clearly, consciousness would have to define itself. But that would make the definition-making process self-referential. Just look at the history of mathematics in the 19th and early 20th century and you'll see what sort of unpleasant things happen when self-referentiality rears its ugly head.

> We can't even properly define consciousness.

"The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible without a grasp of what consciousness means. Many fall into the trap of equating consciousness with self-consciousness—to be conscious it is only necessary to be aware of the external world. Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it has evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written on it."

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

That non-definition comes from a dictionary of psychology. If we are to define consciousness in any way, I expect the breakthrough to come from a combination neurology/neuropsychology, physics, and control theory.

you forget about philosophy

What is your point? Are you saying there is no point to having words for things that we don't fully understand?

Male hipsters too, btw.

You can have a word for something you don't fully understand. That covers most words, even things like 'cat'.

What you shouldn't do is a have a word that people think is specific, when it's actually vague and and a hundred different people will give you a hundred different definitions.

It's like calling food 'organic'. You need to specify a definition before we can discuss anything meaningful about it. It doesn't have to be a perfect definition. You don't need to fully understand it. But you need to specify what you're talking about.

I'm saying no point discussing it. Especially on HN.

Articles grounded in science are a better fit.

There is a lot of discussion about "functional programming" without a consensus on what constitutes that and what are paraphernalia.

A notion exists in a word form when it has some definition, even if it cannot be articulated well. Here by "definition" I mean something like "the ability to categorize examples even if fuzzily", i.e. saying that "a rock is not conscious while a human is" already indicates the existence of a definition. Note that this doesn't require that you be able to describe the category in a nice precise sentence.

Through dialogue, critique, experiments, we can gradually construct a specific sense for the word that a group of people can work on. Take "energy" for instance. The word existed before physicists defined it precisely, and even the definition within that domain evolved when quantum mechanics came around. Furthermore, the usage of the word isn't limited to contexts in physics only.

Is it worthless to ponder "what might a physics definition of consciousness be?".

Definitely not worthless to ponder "what might a physics definition of consciousness be?"

But definitely utterly worthless to ponder "Is consciousness an illusion?" without knowing the definition of consciousness.

"Is consciousness an illusion?" IS positing a definition of consciousness.

In the phrase "Is Life an illusion?" life is not being redefined as an illusion. It is more of a categorization, similar to "Is an apple a fruit?"

Here's a ludicrous question: "Is spirituality a fruit?" Whatever feeling you get when reading that phrase, it's the same feeling I get when reading the title of this article.

i see what you're saying, but i disagree with your premise. particularly in light of both the article and the parent comments. consciousness is a defacto categorisation because we cannot point to a distinct thing which defines it.

we have a shared understanding of consciousness which is separate from 'just' life (ie.apes are conscious but plants are not) but also separate from merely categorisation (ie.we think there are fundamental differences between conscious and not conscious). like when a syndrome becomes a disease.. we are looking for some thing we can point to and say this why we have this set of symptoms.

but this article is suggesting is that possibly there actually is no difference between conscious and not conscious, and that perhaps we are looking for the wrong thing. that is, they are suggesting that consciousness is not a thing, but an emergent illusion / experience.

Exactly. This is a great description and may end up being the state of things forever. A precise definition likely requires that the thing being defined is significantly less complicated than the thing defining it. I suspect a proper physics definition of consciousness would necessitate singularity-quality general AI. But then you'd be unable to define the distinction between those consciousnesses and the more advanced one that was defining them.

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