Meanings
- uncountablehuman sciencesThe qualitative character of consciousness.
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: […]
2022, Sophie Grace Chappell, Epiphanies: An Ethics of Experience, page 1581 more example
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.
2012, Paul S. MacDonald, Languages of Intentionality, page 217
Origin
From what + it's + like + -ness.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
what-it's-like-ness. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/what-it's-like-ness
“what-it's-like-ness.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/what-it's-like-ness. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “what-it's-like-ness,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/what-it's-like-ness.
Source: what-it's-like-ness on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.