Consciousness

[hardrive]

Reading an article in the "New Scientist" (I guess it was the May 2011 issue) that was concerned with the bounderies of human knowledge, I was wondering what here at the Ethos are the opinions on what consciousness actually is.
In that "New Scientist" article was a statement by a physicist or maybe a neurologist, that consciousness is a product of the processes of myriads of neurons and their interactions in the brain. Nothing to argue against one might think -- unless one views the brain itself as a conglomerate of quantum particles that may produce consciousness (= actually an arbitrary axiom), but that don't have any kind of cognition quality inherent.
I can't see any reason why "bunches" of particles could create consciousness; and even if they could, where do they create it and which particles of the brain actually perceive it?

And btw... this isn't about imaginary deites and their possible fairy-tale-like consciousness-granting or other ancient campfire stories in that direction.

[Tankbuster]

How exactly consciousness works and how it is generated, we really have no idea. That being said, there is nobody who can explain how consciousness is generated. I will grant you that the idea that billions of neurons can create a conscious experience seems very strange, but that in itself is not a reason to then propose an other set of particles or phenomena or framework (a soul, a supernatural force, a "unified" consciousness that spawned the universe, consciousness as a basic property of reality, etcetera...) whose mechanisms and nature is also unknown, and then say that that somehow solves (??) the problem.
It has to do with explanatory power: to assert that because something is currently not understood, it therefore lends credence to even more things that are not understood, is a classic argument from ignorance.

What we have been learning about the brain, however, has consistently shown us that at the very least, consciousness is so utterly dependent on the state of the neurons in the brain that it seems indistinguishable. Whether it's through fMRI scans, the use of drugs hallucinogens or magnetic stimulation, or studying patients with brain damage, the evidence points in the direction that the ability to have consciousness (and the way in which consciousness is manifested) is directly dependent on the material world. When we change the material world, the experience of consciousness changes and so the straightforward explanation is simply that consciousness is in fact generated by the brain (even though we don't know exactly how).
That's not to say there might not be more to the story, and that consciousness might in fact simply depend on the natural world but still be something different from it, but at this moment I don't see that having more explanatory power.
After all, to say that consciousness is the product of reality at some high level is proving difficult enough, so it's hard to see why saying that consciousness is more basic to reality and manifests at a lower level of reality (the way dualists and the like would say) is going to make the questions any easier.

That's where the debate is at now, from my perspective.

[SigniferOne]

the evidence points in the direction that the ability to have consciousness (and the way in which consciousness is manifested) is directly dependent on the material world.

Right, with you so far -- the way that a CD music is played is directly dependant on the CD player. If you interfere or break the CD player, of course the music won't come out or will come out all distorted.

What we have been learning about the brain, however, has consistently shown us that at the very least, consciousness is so utterly dependent on the state of the neurons in the brain that it seems indistinguishable.

Wait a sec, the CD is indistinguishable from the CD player? That would be news to all the millions of CD owners.

[Amorphos]

I don’t think consciousness is directly dependent on the material, except for deriving informations of the material environment.

It’s a simple deduction that unless we can state exactly how consciousness is literally a part of an object, then we are talking about a relationship between it and the material and not of it being a part of the object.

Ergo consciousness is ‘other than’ [I’d say it’s a dimension] the material.

Now, we can look at nerve cells, then bundles of them, then of bundles composed as a neurons, and we know what they are. We know how EM works and how hormones work etc, there is nothing physical which displays consciousness.

Perhaps its plausible that as particles seam to have the capability to observe one another, then collections of them may form consciousness. Then we have to think about a universe composed of that, to me we still have some nature in particles which observes and cannot be described by their physicality.

that’s just one element of consciousness, we then have to describe perception, knowing, seeing, informational/conceptual thought etc, are we going to describe all the faculties of mind within each particle too. This especially when ‘acting mechanistically as like an observer’ is the only thing to my knowledge that we have seen particles do.

For me its far simpler and truer to think of consciousness as a dimension. Possibly with a multifaceted reality map.

[Vizsla]

Right, with you so far -- the way that a CD music is played is directly dependant on the CD player. If you interfere or break the CD player, of course the music won't come out or will come out all distorted.


Wait a sec, the CD is indistinguishable from the CD player? That would be news to all the millions of CD owners.

That is the wrong question.
You should be asking: at what point do the individual sounds become music?
Is it when they leave the speakers? Is it when your eardrum detects the pressure changes? Is it when your ear turns that into electrical signals? Is it when different parts of your brain make sense of those signals so another part that contains your identity can perceive it?
At no point is it necessary to invent a soul to explain any of this, it’s all physical processes. If religion had not already invented the soul as an explanation for the self no one would ever have cause to resort to it as an explanation for anything.

Now, we can look at nerve cells, then bundles of them, then of bundles composed as a neurons, and we know what they are. We know how EM works and how hormones work etc, there is nothing physical which displays consciousness.

You’re looking at the component parts that make up the whole under a microscope and then denying that the whole exists because you can’t see it in the microscope – because it is so much bigger than your field of view.

[Amorphos]

You’re looking at the component parts that make up the whole under a microscope and then denying that the whole exists because you can’t see it in the microscope – because it is so much bigger than your field of view.

This is the usual argument, that somehow the complexity creates consciousness, however if we take the simplest experiment of a couple of magnets and some iron filings, then we see the pattern. a mass of such EM polarised frequencies simply makes a complex pattern.
There can be nothing more than what is being produced; how can even a vastly complex pattern gain the ability to know, to perceive, experience, think and have the sense of being?

I can imagine that the brain can record [its memory] and to use an analogy; a tape recorder can record music and video simply by putting down EM frequencies in a complex pattern, and I’d assume the brain can do something similar with mirror neurons. Yet something has to experience that in order to know that the pattern is music.

We could do the same with vision, the brain produces a pattern which the consciousness perceives as an image. Yet naturally if you cut an alive brain open you would see no lightshow going on in there, and we know that light itself stops at the back of the eye where it is converted to EM signals. It is ’something else’ ~ the consciousness, which sees and produces the subjective vision of the world based upon sensory input.

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[Tankbuster]

Right, with you so far -- the way that a CD music is played is directly dependant on the CD player. If you interfere or break the CD player, of course the music won't come out or will come out all distorted.


Wait a sec, the CD is indistinguishable from the CD player? That would be news to all the millions of CD owners.

The CD analogy is easy enough to make, and the same goes for the car and the driver analogy, or the piano and the piano player analogy and any number of analogies you can make.
But ultimately, these are just rhetorical points and slogans. You can use the same CD and CD player analogy to argue that there is an invisible midget inside my laptop who -while all the functionality certainly seems to be coming from the laptop itself to the point that this invisible midget just seems indistinguishable from the actual laptop- it's the midget who is really running the show.

So to say that while all the functionality of the brain seems to be taking place in the material world, there really is still something else there, is all well and good, but you need some actual evidence for that assertion (other than a slogan) and you need to explain why adding this new (indistinguisable) element somehow solves any problems and does that in a parsimonious way.

As far as I can tell, the soul theory cannot do this, and all the analogies in the world won't obfuscate that.

[SigniferOne]

You can use the same CD and CD player analogy to argue that there is an invisible midget inside my laptop who -while all the functionality certainly seems to be coming from the laptop itself to the point that this invisible midget just seems indistinguishable from the actual laptop- it's the midget who is really running the show.

No, first of all we build the laptop from scratch, and there's no midget.

Secondly, the behavior of the laptop differs in no way from the most brutely mechanical automaton machine.

So to say that while all the functionality of the brain seems to be taking place in the material world, there really is still something else there, is all well and good, but you need some actual evidence for that assertion

We don't build the mind ourselves; any number of theories are valid about explaining it (and not just your rhetorical slogans and pseudo-points).

And secondly, the behavior of the mind differs markedly from all other automaton-like entities in the natural world.

(other than a slogan) and you need to explain why adding this new (indistinguisable) element somehow solves any problems and does that in a parsimonious way.

1) The principle of parsimony is self-refuting.

2) Adding the little spiritual midget inside the human mind explains how and why it has functions, and the human race has features, which are diametrically opposed to those of the vast remainder of the universe.

[Ancient Aliens]

How can one even be sure that we do possess true consciousness? Perhaps our existence is akin to a holographic, self aware "movie", entertaining a real existence where physics and creation is sensical. Perhaps our existence is comparible to a complex, extraexistential videogame, limited by our programming.

When dealing with the observable, however, we can deermine several things about the human consciousness:

-It is transcient. For example, personality shifts, severe memory disorders, and multiple personality disorders can all easily and deeply effect the "self", and can perhaps even "end" a particular consciousness, in effect giving rise to an entirely new conscious entity.

-It is self aware. While this may seem like a trivial and obvious point, it does help us to further understand the human consciousness. "Je pense donc je suis" dictates that we do exist, at least on some existential level.

-Organically, it seems to be derivative of the brain. As we have yet to find a "soul" organ, and as we have conducted studies that monitor the synapses that are signalled when discussing the "self" or the consciousness, our consciousness does derive from the brain. Dualism is highly unlikely.

Personally, I feel that our consciousness is similar in nature to thought: electric impulses firing through our neurons.

[Tankbuster]

No, first of all we build the laptop from scratch, and there's no midget.

Well that's obviously just an irrelevant limitation of the analogy. If I give you a laptop for the very first time, it doesn't make a difference whether or not you know how I've constructed it: you'll still not assume it contains an invisible midget, even if you do not understand how every mechanism of it works.

Secondly, the behavior of the laptop differs in no way from the most brutely mechanical automaton machine.

Which is just another thing we know because we've built those kinds of machines before; if I gave you a laptop from scratch and you didn't know what machines could do, invoking the invisible midget would still not be a justifiable step to take.
Furthermore, we haven't built organic mechanic like the brain yet, so we don't know in advance what they can and cannot do. We do know that the predecessors of the brain we have are found in related species all over the world, and the capabilities of their brains are never deemed to be supernatural.

So I don't see how these two objections are very important.

We don't build the mind ourselves; any number of theories are valid about explaining it (and not just your rhetorical slogans and pseudo-points).

Sorry, but that's just an empty objection. You don't have to know how I've built my laptop (or to know that human beings are the ones who build laptops) to know that adding an invisible midget to the mix does not lead to a better explanation of anything.

And secondly, the behavior of the mind differs markedly from all other automaton-like entities in the natural world.

I'm not quite sure what that sentence is supposed to mean, but obviously how human beings behave (as complex as we can be) is remarkably similar to how other animals (to which we are related, after all) operate.
Whether it's waging war, social relationships, hierarchies, biological impulses, much of what we do and how we behave (especially from we can observe from less civilised societies) can directly be explained as being an extension and inheritance of our predecessors.

Obviously we're also more advanced than animals in many key ways (problem-solving skills and we're better at self-reflection, to name two), but to say that these differences are fundamental differences which could not possibly be explained by a natural framework (even though all the similarities apparently are) would be very strange.

1) The principle of parsimony is self-refuting.

That doesn't stop it from being a powerful practical tool for determining the validity of an explanation. We use it all the time in our life and for very good reason.

2) Adding the little spiritual midget inside the human mind explains how and why it has functions, and the human race has features, which are diametrically opposed to those of the vast remainder of the universe.

Okay, so please explain some of these how's and why's. How do you explain consciousness in a way that actually solves some of the problems and doesn't just push them back? Take all the time you need

[Jack04]

Probably the simplest definition of consciousness is simply a state of awareness. If you are aware, you are conscious. In which case, I don't see why a computer with sensory inputs couldn't be described as "conscious" (however much we might dislike the concept). Self-awareness may be a slightly more difficult concept, but wouldn't seem to be beyond the reaches of such a system.

[Vizsla]

It could be an illusion.
We could just be string puppets dancing to a deterministically predetermined tune but never know it.
What are the proofs that we are genuinely conscious? (This is not a rhetorical question – I’d like to know.) I refer to the special kind of higher human consciousness and not just dumb awareness.

[Col. Tartleton]

I have seen some things that make me consider that the consciousness exists at the quantum level and that the brain is simply the umbilical cord tethering the conscious mind to the physical body. The guy literally without any resembling a full brain who graduated college with honors. Basically the mind controls the body through the brain but it can do so directly without it. Stuff like near death experiences and people waking up from comas saying their goodbyes and flatlining. It doesn't always happen, but it can happen.

We know the brain is involved in the application of the mind, but we don't know it's the source itself. There is some esoteric stuff that happens and it makes me scratch my head as to alternatives other than a Nous.

I'm still a skeptic but I'm intrigued.

[(s)AINT]

I prefer occam's razor... The state of awareness.

ALL organisms have it, it seems. Though some can't understand it like we can.

[Amorphos]

I prefer occam's razor... The state of awareness.
ALL organisms have it, it seems. Though some can't understand it like we can.

that’s a good point there does seam to be some essential natures. Would you not say that experience lies within awareness, such that really it all comes down to utility. …If an awareness/experiencer is given sensory data from a human then it is human and from a snail it is a snail etc.
Are bacteria as aware as we are or is there a hierarchy…

If you dry some yeast out then add water, what is awareness to it?

The conclusion I arrive at is the opposite of Occam’s razor, all things are proportional to their given state. To get consciousness something has to have a nature that consciousness requires to interface with ~ a very complex one imho.
For me that requires animation in a non strictly mechanistic manner. An object [e.g. a human machine/biological robot] needs to be able to be moved by a thinker, otherwise it would be an automaton.

Awareness alone does not require this!

[Taiji]

In hypnosis, inducing deep trance phenomena. I think that's an area with a lot of info on the nature of consciousness. Where it appears to take a back seat while the hypnotist communicates with a person's 'subconscious'/'unconscious'. Specifically the methods of induction - how consciousness is manipulated and what becomes possible when it is manipulated.

For example if consciousness is 'down' for a moment, then during that moment a person can be susceptible to 'suggestions' which they respond to without any conscious awareness of the decision to respond, nor how to respond. This suggests consciousness provides a 'critical function', a defense against responding badly in ambiguous situations. So then hypnosis is nothing more than a bunch of linguistic methods to slip stuff past conscious processing.

I suppose it's just a part of the learning machinery, consciousness.

[Amorphos]

This suggests consciousness provides a 'critical function', a defense against responding badly in ambiguous situations. So then hypnosis is nothing more than a bunch of linguistic methods to slip stuff past conscious processing.

Interesting! From what I gather hypnosis is quite similar to acting on an internal level, essentially one is agreeing with what the hypnotist wants you to do. If he says, 'don’t remember' then you wont ~ because you have agreed to and so the brain responds accordingly.

Perhaps we could say that the consciousness is the inner hypnotist ~ we are doing the same thing with the brain in our everyday life.

[Taiji]

Interesting! From what I gather hypnosis is quite similar to acting on an internal level, essentially one is agreeing with what the hypnotist wants you to do. If he says, 'don’t remember' then you wont ~ because you have agreed to and so the brain responds accordingly.

You're more likely not to remember if s/he tells you to remember to forget. Because the you that works well with negation is not the unconscious you, and it's the unconscious you that knows how to remember and forget.

Perhaps we could say that the consciousness is the inner hypnotist ~ we are doing the same thing with the brain in our everyday life.

Yes, inevitably - your conscious mind is better at hypnotising you than anything else is. But it's also a yes for every communication to which we don't attend consciously. In other words what we think we know well enough to unconsciously respond to is able to affect our unconscious processing. And, roughly, this stuff is what generates the linguistic patterns for hypnotic suggestion.

We should define two different things here. There is consiousness (which is opposed to the state of being unconsious) and being (self)aware.

Consiousness and unconsiousness we know quite abit more about than self-awareness. Your muscle reflexes are (basic example) of your unconcious self.

In an adult the way they understand their native language is also a basic example of the unconscious level of processing, personally I much prefer that example since it's more obviously about thinking, and plus it relates to what I wrote above. But I agree totally that the 'unconscious' in hypnosis is not the state of being unconscious, and neither is it a part of a model of 'self-awareness' (whatever that might be).

So there's 3 things defined, but none of them completely. Good points to raise though, Nimthill.

Probably part of hypnotists deciding to use the label 'unconscious' stems from wanting to be able to say to a subject "Your unconscious" a lot. Because it's phonologically ambiguous with "You're unconscious" - a convenient hypnotic command because it's likely to be consciously understood as "Your unconscious" without any conscious assessment and subsequent rejection of the ambiguity. Meaning the unconscious may respond to it, and ofc it also might not.

[Amorphos]

Taiji

You're more likely not to remember if s/he tells you to remember to forget. Because the you that works well with negation is not the unconscious you, and it's the unconscious you that knows how to remember and forget.

Yes, inevitably. But it's also a yes for everything to which we don't attend consciously. In other words what we think we know well enough to unconsciously respond to is able to affect our unconscious processing. And, roughly, this is what generates the linguistic patterns for hypnotic suggestion.

Indeed, hence it is wrong for people to think hypnosis means we have no control [as is often the fear imho], or that it shows we are purely deterministic beings. We simply apportion out what we don’t need to ‘attend’ to - as you put it [good way of putting it too], and our trust in the brain as a vehicle is what’s being manipulated by hypnosis.

In short then, hypnosis utilises the relationship between the consciousness and the brain, and can only have effect where the consciousness allows it to, it doesn’t actually control the consciousness.

For me the same applies for the brain and hypnosis is actually showing that rather than how the brain entirely controls the consciousness!


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[Nimthill]

We should define two different things here. There is consiousness (which is opposed to the state of being unconsious) and being (self)aware.

Consiousness and unconsiousness we know quite abit more about than self-awareness. Your muscle reflexes are (basic example) of your unconcious self.