what-it's-like-ness

English

Etymology

what +‎ it's +‎ like +‎ -ness

Noun

what-it's-like-ness (uncountable)

1. (philosophy) The qualitative character of consciousness.
   • 2012, Paul S. MacDonald, Languages of Intentionality, page 217:

     Thomas Nagel brought into contemporary debates the notion of what-it's-like-ness by claiming that in order to understand an entity as conscious, there must be something that it is like to be that thing. There is nothing that it's like to be a bat, he said, it's not possible for us to imagine what it's like to be a bat.

   • 2022, Sophie Grace Chappell, Epiphanies: An Ethics of Experience, page 158:

     At the what-it's-like-ness end of the semantic range of the word 'experience', we have something that I might also call 'consciousness' — if that helps: […]