RichardKennaway comments on Confused as to usefulness of 'consciousness' as a concept - LessWrong

35 Post author: KnaveOfAllTrades 13 July 2014 11:01AM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 13 July 2014 01:01:55PM 4 points [-]

I'm not sure that I mean the same thing as you do by the phrase "a sense of my own presence" (in the same way that I do not know, when you say "yellow", whether or not we experience the colour in the same way).

Such uncertainty applies to all our sensations. There may very well be some variation in all of them, even leaving aside gross divergences such as colour blindness and Cotard's syndrome.

What I can say is that I do feel that I am present; and that I can't imagine not feeling that I am present, because then who is there to not feel it?

I am not present during dreamless sleep, which happens every night.

Comment author: CCC 13 July 2014 01:18:01PM 4 points [-]

I am not present during dreamless sleep, which happens every night.

I have no memory of what (if anything) I experience during dreamless sleep. I therefore cannot say whether or not I can feel my own presence at such a time.

To be fair, that is what I would expect to say about a time in which I could not feel my own presence anywhere.

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