Consciousness may be one of the most familiar experiences in life, yet it remains one of the hardest to define. We all know what it feels like to see a red light, feel a sharp pain, or enjoy a sip of water when thirsty. But turning those private experiences into precise scientific definitions has baffled philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists for centuries.
Oxford biologist Marian Stamp Dawkins takes a fresh approach to this puzzle in her recent book Who Is Conscious? A Guide to the Minds of Animals. She argues that one of the biggest obstacles to progress is not just lack of evidence but the way we use words. Terms such as fear, pain, and emotion are routinely used in ways that blur critical distinctions. Sometimes they refer to the visible behavior of an animal - the raised hackles, the rapid heartbeat, the startled cry. Other times they imply an inner state of feeling - the subjective experience of actually being afraid or suffering pain. Without making this distinction explicit, we risk confusing ourselves and others.
Dawkins calls this problem "flirting with consciousness." Just as a flirt hints at seriousness but avoids commitment, scientists and writers sometimes use emotionally charged words that suggest real conscious experiences are present - but later retreat to a safer claim about observable behavior when challenged. The result is language that sounds profound, but that clouds rather than clarifies the debate.
Pain vs. Nociception
The example of pain science shows both the danger and a possible way forward. The physiologist Charles Sherrington coined the word nociception to describe the sensory and neural processes by which organisms detect and respond to injury. Nociception is the body's alarm system - receptors firing, nerves carrying signals, muscles reacting. But pain, as Dawkins emphasizes, is the conscious experience of suffering. It is the difference between withdrawing your hand reflexively from a hot stove and actually feeling the burn.
Having two words allows researchers to be precise. They can describe nociceptive pathways without implying that the subject is consciously suffering. Unfortunately, for most emotions and mental states no equivalent vocabulary exists. We casually use fear, anger, or memory to describe both information-processing and subjective experience, and often fail to notice when we have slipped from one meaning to the other.
Sentience and the Animal Question
This ambiguity is especially pressing in debates about animal consciousness. Laws in the UK and European Union now explicitly recognize many animals - including octopuses and crabs - as sentient beings. The term sentience is deliberately chosen to mean the capacity for basic conscious states such as pain, pleasure, and suffering. Yet even here, the absence of clear distinctions can cause problems. An "angry elephant" may be a figure of speech, or it may be a serious claim about what the elephant actually feels.
Philosophers have long tried to sharpen these distinctions. Ned Block, in a now-famous paper, separated phenomenal consciousness (the full range of subjective experiences) from access consciousness (the subset of experiences we can verbalize, reason about, and act on). Others, like David Chalmers, have emphasized the "hard problem" - explaining why information processing in the brain should ever be accompanied by subjective feeling at all. Dawkins does not attempt to solve this philosophical riddle, but she insists that language should not make the problem worse.
The Seduction of Words
Part of the danger, Dawkins suggests, is that English simply lacks the vocabulary to keep technical and everyday meanings apart. We can manage the ambiguity of words like funny (amusing or odd) because context usually makes the meaning clear. But when the same word - such as thought or emotion - can mean either unconscious processing or conscious awareness, the stakes are higher. Scientists may slip into treating the two as equivalent, while non-specialists may assume that all cognition is conscious by default.
The result is not only miscommunication but self-deception. Researchers may begin by using a term in a restricted, technical sense, but through repetition slide into its everyday, consciousness-loaded meaning. What begins as a careful scientific discussion about behavior or cognition can end up as an unexamined assumption that real conscious experience has been demonstrated.
Why Clarity Matters
For Dawkins, avoiding this slide is not just a matter of semantics. It is essential to making progress on the central scientific and ethical question: Which animals are conscious, and what kinds of experiences do they have? Clever behavior, problem-solving, and learning do not necessarily imply conscious feelings. Computers and smartphones can "recognize" voices and store "memories," but we do not believe they suffer or rejoice. Similarly, many animals show complex information processing, but the leap from processing to conscious awareness cannot be assumed.
That is why she urges scientists to work harder at keeping the distinction clear. Consciousness in the sense of phenomenal experience - the awareness of pain that hurts or pleasure that satisfies - is the real issue. As long as words like anger, fear, or stress can mean either conscious experience or unconscious process, we risk talking past each other.
Flirting vs. Defining
Dawkins' warning is ultimately a call for intellectual discipline. Consciousness, she insists, is too important a subject for casual wordplay. If we continue to "flirt" with it - hinting at profound claims without defining what we mean - we will confuse not only the public but ourselves. If we commit to clarity, we may not solve the hard problem of consciousness, but we will at least be asking the right questions in the right way.
