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Re:Is the Sun Conscious? [pdf] by strogonoff on Friday March 29, 2024 @02:58AM (#39861358)
“Answers” is a word that hints that you are still thinking of it as human-like consciousness.

A valid point could be that our consciousness is social (“answering” is a thing), and by extension any alien consciousness we expect would also have to be social as one of the constraints that make it sufficiently human-like.

Re:Is the Sun Conscious? [pdf] by lukan on Friday March 29, 2024 @03:22AM (#39861463)
That is a good point. I need to clarify my consciousness about it.

In general I don't think a consciousness needs to be social to react to other consciousness. They might pose a threat or benefit. Say we want to build a dyson sphere and that would disrupt the suns ability to communicate with other suns (also social I know). I try to find better examples ..

Re:Is the Sun Conscious? [pdf] by colordrops on Friday March 29, 2024 @04:11AM (#39861692)
Is there any other definition of consciousness than one of a subjective experience that observes and reacts to its environment?
Re:Is the Sun Conscious? [pdf] by chongli on Friday March 29, 2024 @04:20AM (#39861746)
What is a subjective experience? To me, this seems like an infinite regress problem.
Re:Is the Sun Conscious? [pdf] by MacsHeadroom on Friday March 29, 2024 @08:42AM (#39863375)
Subjective experience is the awareness of an internal representation.
Re:Is the Sun Conscious? [pdf] by chongli on Saturday March 30, 2024 @06:58AM (#39873657)
What is awareness then? Do you see my point? Either you end up with a circle of references or an infinite regress of definitions to describe the ineffable.

It’s the problem of qualia [1]. They can’t really be defined, only pointed at. My experience of seeing the colour red is non-universalizable. Thus the word red can only point at it, it can’t describe or define it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

Re:Is the Sun Conscious? [pdf] by strogonoff on Friday March 29, 2024 @11:11AM (#39865021)
I would say there is no working definition of consciousness at all—and potentially there can’t be a complete and provably correct one, if we assume Gödel’s incompleteness theorem is true. The reason is that our arguments about consciousness originate from consciousness itself, we are building a model of the system while being inside of it. The only definitive statement that can be made, I guess, is that consciousness exists.

As far as consciousness that doesn’t react, there are materialist/behaviourist/illusionist views that hold that only observed behaviour matters and anything else may well not exist, but I personally am not convinced by them.