On: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

[llamaimperative]

> We know what consciousness is. It's our self-awareness

Not really. There are plenty of disorders that destroy a person’s self-awareness but appear to leave a fully conscious person there anyway.

[mannykannot → llamaimperative]

I believe you are right to say that consciousness is generally regarded as more than self-awareness, but unless you want to regard self-awareness as specifically not a form of consciousness, then the consciousness of the people with the disorder you refer to are missing something - something that I believe was of great importance in the evolution of the human mind.

[llamaimperative → mannykannot]

Yeah, my understanding is that it's highly undesirable to have no sense of self-awareness.

[JohnAaronNelson → llamaimperative]

Then take off the “self” part.

How about conscious is awareness? The more aware you are, the more conscious you are?

[bckr → JohnAaronNelson]

Is 1000 bees more or less aware than 10 buffalo?