I want to open a side thread about your definitions or descriptions of what "consciousness" is. I think that could be pretty interesting after reading all the comments, and I think there's a lot of knowledge hidden here that we could throw together.
Some things that I understood, in my words:
- consciousness is probably not reducible to smaller, non-conscious parts of which it is composed. You could maybe say it is intrinsically holistic
- consciousness entails being aware of or observing qualities that hard science tells us the things don't have (green vs. length of lightwave); but "being aware of" or "observing" are so closely related to consciousness, that it may not be very informative
- consciousness can't be detected from the outside for now, and probably by the structure of the process. It is "inner" in a very peculiar sense (everything else is outer, and can't get in, except as representation)
Some things that I understood, in my words:
- consciousness is probably not reducible to smaller, non-conscious parts of which it is composed. You could maybe say it is intrinsically holistic
- consciousness entails being aware of or observing qualities that hard science tells us the things don't have (green vs. length of lightwave); but "being aware of" or "observing" are so closely related to consciousness, that it may not be very informative
- consciousness can't be detected from the outside for now, and probably by the structure of the process. It is "inner" in a very peculiar sense (everything else is outer, and can't get in, except as representation)