It seems to be widely acknowledged that consciousness, the kind of
consciousness that Andy and Chalmers call "the hard problem", is
consciousness *of* something. (When I use "consciousness in this post
I mean that kind of consciousness.)

Here are some thoughts on the "something" that I, and presumably the
rest of you, are conscious of. I start with an example.

My step father has severe macular degeneration; there is a blind spot
in the middle of his retina. When he focuses on, say a word of test
in a book, he sees a blank spot and some of the surrounding text in
his peripheral vision. What's interesting is that the blank spot
"disappears" when he is not focusing on one small thing. If he just
looks around he sees just what you or I would expect to see and there
are no blanks or missing items. His eye/brain constructs a picture
that fills in the blank and presents it to him.

The picture is composed of processed sense data but also of memories,
memories of what his peripheral vision saw as he scanned around that
the brain then uses to fill in the blank spot.

"Ed" wrote:
(I can't fault your analysis up to this point Ed,
so I won't comment on the earlier part of your post.)

*Human* consciousness is consciousness of brain states.

Agreed.

If consciousness is a product of evolution then it is either functional or
epiphenomenal. It's the "if" that is up for grabs.

On Feb 15, 12:10 pm, "andy-k" wrote:

Yes, I originally typed it that way; but then I thought, do I know of
any other kind?
Well, maybe some other mammals, but they have brains too, and likely
brain states too. So I took out the "human".

"Ed" wrote:

Yes, *I* don't know of any other kind (since human consciousness is
the only kind I can possibly know), but it's a logical fallacy to conclude
from that premise that there is no other kind.

On Feb 16, 6:33 am, Ed earthlink.net> wrote:

Is the complexity required for the phenomenon or is it
required for the type of content of the phenomenon?

It seems to me that consciousness is a type of behavior.

JC

On Feb 16, 7:31 am, "andy-k" wrote:

I think that is attributing the property of the whole
to the part. And it only appears to the whole brain
when the whole brain is active.

Of course you don't need a shower of rain to make a
rainbow, a dvd will do just as well, but to suggest
that everything has a rainbow would be unlikely.

The only public criteria of a rainbow is its observation.
The only public criteria of other people's consciousness
is their behavior. I can't prove atoms aren't consciouss
but they certainly don't behave that way.

JC

"casey" wrote:

That may be your opinion, but the question is how to demonstrate
that the alternative is incorrect.

Such a suggestion would not only be unlikely but also absurd.
The difference between a rainbow and consciousness should not
be too difficult to discern -- rainbows make their appearance as part
of the contents of consciousness, but consciousness never does.

On Feb 15, 4:16 pm, casey yahoo.com.au> wrote:

Sure, but not one that is easily detected from the outside. Adding
numbers in your head is behavior, but we out here can't tell you're
doing it.

We need more data on what non-conscious people would be like.

On Feb 15, 3:31 pm, "andy-k" wrote:

"andy-k" wrote in message
news:oIjtj.399$GQ6.379@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...

Quick, what state is your brain in now?

Unless you want to lapse into complete incoherence, it would be better to
say that human consciousness (or any consciousness, like pig consciousness,
dog consciousness) is consciousness of... whatever it is conscious of, like
the sky, an ache, another voice, or a passing car. The brain itself isn't
the sky, the voice, the ache, or the passing car.

Consciousness isn't other than a state of the brain. It is a state of the
brain ensconced in an organism.