What a wonderful read. I never expected such diversity in opinions, yet, most of them were amazing! Thanks for getting into the trouble investigating on this subject. They don't call it "hard problem of consciousness" for fun. We did our own approach in our 2022 paper about a (theoretical) construction of an AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) on a secure, auditable and open access medium, from which I will repost a part from section 2:
In searching for the definition of consciousness, one must seek into the Ancient Greek thesaurus for the word suneidésis, “Συνείδησις” (< συν − (σύν) + εἴδησις < οἶδα), the essence of which means “together <we> + know”. The Latin equivalent was translated as “conscientia” which was used in modern times by René Descartes and later John Locke for creating the word “consciousness” (Lewis and Short 1999). Descartes coined the famous aphorism, “Cogito, ergo sum”, or “I think, therefore I am”. This casts consciousness as the emergent property of our mind, called thinking, and its relations to existence, personality, intelligence, and perception of self. “I am” is the primary rule; and my thoughts are my elegant proof of my individuality, my identity.
I would also suggest the Identity Cycle by Ian Grigg (a co-author of mine in a couple of works) which you can find here (it's free - best things in life still are):
What a wonderful read. I never expected such diversity in opinions, yet, most of them were amazing! Thanks for getting into the trouble investigating on this subject. They don't call it "hard problem of consciousness" for fun. We did our own approach in our 2022 paper about a (theoretical) construction of an AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) on a secure, auditable and open access medium, from which I will repost a part from section 2:
In searching for the definition of consciousness, one must seek into the Ancient Greek thesaurus for the word suneidésis, “Συνείδησις” (< συν − (σύν) + εἴδησις < οἶδα), the essence of which means “together <we> + know”. The Latin equivalent was translated as “conscientia” which was used in modern times by René Descartes and later John Locke for creating the word “consciousness” (Lewis and Short 1999). Descartes coined the famous aphorism, “Cogito, ergo sum”, or “I think, therefore I am”. This casts consciousness as the emergent property of our mind, called thinking, and its relations to existence, personality, intelligence, and perception of self. “I am” is the primary rule; and my thoughts are my elegant proof of my individuality, my identity.
More: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/15/8/360
I would also suggest the Identity Cycle by Ian Grigg (a co-author of mine in a couple of works) which you can find here (it's free - best things in life still are):
Link: https://www.iang.org/identity_cycle/identity_cycle-3-20211118.pdf
I hope you will find some value in both.
Konstantinos.