A dialogue with Ordinary Person Keith
Keith Frankish,
Apr 26, 2023
Is there "a minimal, theory-neutral conception of phenomenal consciousness, which everyone can agree picks out something real." Most people would quickly say yes, there is. But people say there are lots of things, some of which exist, like chairs, and some of which don't, like ghosts. But as this dialogue shows, when you ask people what their various experiences have in common, there is really no answer. Seeing blue is just 'seeing blue', feeling pain is just 'feeling pain'', and so on. In this reply to Frankish, Eric Schwitzgebel argues we can just define consciousness by example. "Can't we just use the term (consciousness) to capture whatever it is that the things I've just called (consciousness) have in common, which the other things which aren't (consciousness) lack?" Well, we could do that, but what's the point? If we can describe what's happening at the neural, why do we need some other thing which really doesn't add to the description or explanation at all?
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