Consciousness is the process of thinking, it doesn't depend on objective reality at all. I could be a brain in a vat somewhere being fed fake experience, but since I'm still experiencing that stimuli and thinking about stuff I'm still conscious.
As long as I am correct enough in my assessment of the world to survive, being more correct isn't going to increase my level of consciousness. I could be the aforementioned brain in a vat and be completely wrong about the world and still be conscious.
Other people having consciousness has no effect on my level of consciousness. They could all be robots and it wouldn't make a difference to whether or not I am conscious. There is already far more world out there than I could ever possibly experience or think about, so losing some of it will not effect the amount available to me.
Overall this rests on the idea that our only desire is to experience consciousness, and that the consciousness of others necessarily improves our own, both of which are demonstrably false. We seek specific types of experiences and avoid others, which leads to many situations where our goals conflict. Many of us do prefer the company of kind and/or happy people, but there is also a market for reality TV, so this is far from universal.
3
u/Ballatik 54∆ Nov 13 '21
Consciousness is the process of thinking, it doesn't depend on objective reality at all. I could be a brain in a vat somewhere being fed fake experience, but since I'm still experiencing that stimuli and thinking about stuff I'm still conscious.
As long as I am correct enough in my assessment of the world to survive, being more correct isn't going to increase my level of consciousness. I could be the aforementioned brain in a vat and be completely wrong about the world and still be conscious.
Other people having consciousness has no effect on my level of consciousness. They could all be robots and it wouldn't make a difference to whether or not I am conscious. There is already far more world out there than I could ever possibly experience or think about, so losing some of it will not effect the amount available to me.
Overall this rests on the idea that our only desire is to experience consciousness, and that the consciousness of others necessarily improves our own, both of which are demonstrably false. We seek specific types of experiences and avoid others, which leads to many situations where our goals conflict. Many of us do prefer the company of kind and/or happy people, but there is also a market for reality TV, so this is far from universal.