Hi Jason

I had nearly finished an earlier version of this reply and then hit Cntrl I to put italics on a word only to find that my reply disappeared. I hate retyping so this might be shorter than the first.

I was puzzled by your comment that "The point I think Kevin was making is that Chalmers' argument is about one particular kind or aspect of consciousness, regardless of whether or not cats or frogs have it, too."  What "particular kind or aspect of consciousness" could be in question?  Surely, we must be able to say which animal in particular (including the human animal) we are talking about?  Otherwise we seem to be positing a kind of purely hypothetical, disembodied consciousness - a very embarrassing position for a scientist to be in, surely - especially since it would presumably be possible that no animal possessed the kind of 'consciousness' we manage to dream up.

Moreover, how would this thinking fit with Chalmers' claim that one does not need a definition of consciousnesses to define a zombie - which is apparently a human minus consciousness? (I realize these are probably questions for him, not you or Kevin.)

Behaviorism:  I remember reading a good demolition of Skinner by Chomsky many years ago. Can't recall the title unfortunately.

Transience:  I am not simply talking about the awareness of death - though as I said, do we think that any other animal, apart from human beings, knows that it will die one day?  What would 'die' even 'mean' to a bird?   But it is more than this. It is the sense that pervades our lives, once we emerge from early childhood, that this 'I' is finite - which is why we 'make plans', hope for this or that, regret this or that, etc. I'm not of course suggesting that this is a complete definition of consciousnesses, but as I said, it is the kind of fundamental issue that is routinely ignored in analytic phil's discussions of (human) consciousness. (I raised it one day in a seminar and was looked at in bewilderment. The seminar went back to its discussion of monkeys looking into mirrors...)

This sense of finitude is, as I said, not at all in conflict with the fact that some religious believers have faith in eternal life.  Indeed, such faith only highlights the point I am making, because it represents an escape from transience (which is not to argue that religious faith is necessarily a delusion).