Hi Jason

Bit much to respond to so I'll just mention a couple of points.

First is a question. What does Dennett mean by 'the language of consciousnesses'? (if that is his phrase). I would have thought people talk about consciousness in all sorts of ways. And to say for example that "when people talk about consciousness, they usually mean something which has a 'point of view'" seems to me very questionable indeed. I for one most certainly don't mean that.

Second, you say: "What, in your view, would give a discussion of consciousness depth?  How do you measure depth, in this context?"

This is harder to respond to.  If I were able to give you what I regard as a complete and satisfactory response, I would effectively be in a position to say what I think human consciousness is.  I'm not in that position - and no one I've read in this field of philosophy seems to me to be in that position either - not even remotely. 

But, as you say, how then can I call any given approach "shallow" etc?  Well, it seems to me that any persuasive account of human consciousness would, in effect, be an account of what, fundamentally, makes us human - because I think human consciousness is central to that. Whatever "being human" entails exactly, it must surely encompass things like our sense of the passing of time, of our own finitude (i.e. that we will die), the source and nature of human emotions and passions -  love, hate, envy, self-sacrifice, devotion, acts of treachery and so on and on - and major aspects of human experience throughout history such as moral codes, religion, art - and even perhaps the impulse to philosophize itself. In short, the whole gamut of what we associate with being human - including, of course, attitudes and actions we might regard as inhuman. 

Trivial little formulae like 'not being like anything' (or whatever the Nagel thing is), 'having a point of view', or earnest discussions about 'seeing the colour red', or about people in comas, or monkeys looking into mirrors, seem to me to be a million miles away from anything like this - and I note that, typically, nothing of this kind arises in contemporary philosophical discussions of human consciousness, at least not in the analytic variety (one sometimes finds things a bit like this in parts of continental philosophy). That, in brief, is what lies behind my assessments about various accounts being shallow and inconsequential.

DA