Russell Standish writes:
> Consciousness is the state of "being like something" to use Nagel's> term. It is also the characteristic of the "reference class" in> Anthropic reasoning.> > Self-awareness is being aware of oneself as a distinct thing different> from the environment.> > It is not immediately obvious that these are identical - but perhaps> I'm overlooking something.
I always took it for granted that they were the much the same. I suppose I can be conscious without actively being self-aware, but a moment's reflection will indicate that there is an "I" if I'm having any sort of experience. The mysterious thing is raw conscious experience: if you can explain that, the idea that "I am a thinking being separate from my environment" isn't fundamentally different to any other idea you might have.
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Tue Jul 25 2006 - 02:56:44 PDT