I think you already forgot how this particular part of the thread started. First I said that we had established that "X is false", then you disagreed, then I pointed out that I had asked "is X true?" and you had no direct answer.

You are correct that "I forgot", in the sense that I don't know exactly what you are referring to, although my guess is to the IKEA discussion. In any case, the response there, and to anything similar that you might be discussing, is that there is no direct answer because the answer is "in some cases yes, in some cases no, depending on the particular circumstances."

What exactly do you mean by "vague"?

First of all, all words are vague, so there is no such thing as "what exactly do you mean by." No one ever means anything exactly. Secondly, what I mean is that there are no determinate boundaries to the meaning of the word.

Is the category itself "vague"?

Yes. All categories are vague, because they are generated by a process similar to factor analysis, as I have said before, and this does not generate precise categories, but vague ones.

I have been telling you form the beginning, that the meanings of words are constructed individually and arbitrarily on a case by case basis. But you keep acting like there is some shared, absolute and natural concept of a chair.

It is false that the meanings are arbitrary, for the reasons I have said. It is also false that there is some "absolute and natural concept of a chair," and I have never suggested that there is.

And finally, you seem to agree that you don't actually know what the corner cases are or should be, but apparently that's not because people use words as they please, but because this shared absolute and natural concept of a chair is "vague", whatever that means.

This is true of all words. All words are defined either by other words, or by pointing at things, and precise concepts cannot be formed by pointing at things. Therefore no words refer to precise concepts (in fact there is no such thing as a precise concept, as I have already said.)

We can talk more about what this has to do with consciousness when we get past the "language 101" stuff.

First of all, you are the one who needs the "language 101" stuff, since you have been abusing the concept of meaning by confusing it with testability. Second, nope, we will not be continuing this discussion of language. Not until you show that it has something to do with consciousness. It doesn't. You have been constantly confusing two entirely separate issues, and ignoring me when I point out the separateness of these issues. Let me do so one more time.

You have been confusing the idea "this statement has a meaning" with "this statement is testable." Those are two entirely separate things. Likewise, you have been confusing "this statement is vague" with "this statement is not testable." These are two entirely separate things.

Consider a line of stars. The one at the left end is a red giant. The one at the right end is a white dwarf. In between, the stars each differ from the previous one by a single atom. Then you have a question of vagueness. When exactly do we stop calling them white dwarfs and start calling them red giants? There cannot possibly be a precise answer. This has nothing to do with testability; we can test whatever we want. The problem is that the terminology is vague, and there is no precise answer because it is vague.

Second, consider a line of stars outside the visible universe, except that some of the stars, on the right, are identical white dwarfs, and the ones to the left of them are identical red giants. Where exactly do the stars stop being white dwarfs and begin being red giants? This time, we cannot answer the question because there is no test to give us the answer. But vagueness is not an issue, because there is a sharp division between the two parts. We simply cannot find it by testing.

Third, consider a line of stars outside the the visible universe, constructed as in the first case. This time, there are two problems: we cannot test where the boundary is, and the boundary is vague. These are two entirely different issues.

Fourth, consider a line of things where the one on the left is a statue, the one on the right is a human being, and somewhere in the middle there are robotic things. Each thing differs by a single atom from the thing on its left, and from the thing on its right.

Now we have the question: "The statue is not conscious. The human being is conscious. Is the central robot conscious?" There are two separate issues here. One is that we cannot test for consciousness. The second is that the word "conscious" is vague. These are two entirely separate issues, just as they are in the above cases of the stars.

Let us prove this. Suppose you are the human being on the right. We begin to modify you, one atom at a time, moving you to the left. Now the issue is testable: you can ask yourself whether you are conscious, and if you have any answer at all, or even if you manage to ask yourself the question, then you are conscious. Note that this is quite different from anyone else asking the thing if it is conscious, because the question "does this thing say it is conscious" is not the same as "is this thing conscious." But being conscious is having a first person point of view, so if you can ask yourself anything, you are conscious. Unfortunately, long before you cease to be conscious, you will cease to be able to ask yourself any questions. So you will still not be able to find a definite boundary between conscious and not conscious. Nonetheless, this proves that testability is entirely separate from vagueness.