[FRIAM] Is consciousness a mystery? (used to be "mystery...deeper".T

[Frank Wimberly]

Nick, That is not a valid syllogism.

All X have Y
x has Y
Therefore x is an X

Is that a correct formalization of what you said?

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Jul 9, 2024, 1:54 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> While I find all the  ancillary considerations raised on the original
> thread extremely interesting,  I would like to reopen the discussion of
> Conscious as a Mystery and ask that those that join it stay close to the
> question of what consciousness is and how we know it when we see it.  Baby
> Steps.
>
> Where were we?   I think I was asking Jochen, and perhaps Peitr and
> anybody else who thought that animals were not conscious (i.e., not aware
> of their own awareness)  what basis they had in experience for thinking
> that..  One offering for such an experience is the absence of language in
> animals.  Because my cat cannot  describe his experience in words, he
> cannot be  conscious.  This requires the following syllogism:
>
> Nothing that does not employ a language (or two?) is conscious.
> Animals (with ;the possible exception of signing apes) do not employ
> languages.
> Ergo, Animals are not conscious.
>
> But I was trying to find out the basis for the first premise.  How do we
> know that there are no non-linguistic beings that are not conscious.  I
> hope we could rule out the answer,"because they are non-linguistic",  both
> in its strictly  tautological or merely circular form.
>
> There is a closely related syllogism which we also need to explore:
>
> All language using beings are conscious.
> George Peter Tremblay IV is a language-using being.
> George Peter Tremblay IV is conscious.
>
> Both are valid syllogisms.  But where do the premises come from.
>
> Nick
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