Understanding Consciousness: Awareness vs. Attention

[ruby sparks]

Cop,

I do not know what is causing the shifts in attention, but my guess would be that it is automatic. Perhaps that is the wrong word. I mean it just happens as part of the system running through its evolved and learned patterns. I ventured to suggest above that attention may be related to the duration, intensity and/or significance (perhaps in terms of survival or related priorities) of stimuli. Beyond that guess, I don't know.

 

[ruby sparks]

In the case of the Necker Cube, I might guess that the trigger for a viewer system to shift its perception is the system 'trying to get it right', because the system functions better in the world if it gets the world 'right' (eg working out what's in the foreground and what's in the background).

 

[ruby sparks]

Attention is awareness, it is a state of awareness focused upon an object of interest.

Would it be better to say that conscious awareness is attention?

 

[fromderinside]

Attention is awareness, it is a state of awareness focused upon an object of interest.

Would it be better to say that conscious awareness is attention?

No. We'd have to correct about 180 years of psychophysics.

 

[DBT]

Attention is awareness, it is a state of awareness focused upon an object of interest.

Would it be better to say that conscious awareness is attention?

Meh, semantics. By definition, to be aware you must be conscious. There appears to be a lot of overlap.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Attention is awareness, it is a state of awareness focused upon an object of interest.

Would it be better to say that conscious awareness is attention?

Meh, semantics. By definition, to be aware you must be conscious. There appears to be a lot of overlap.

Blindsight.

Next, why isnt the necker cube shifting priming rather than shifting attention?

 

[Treedbear]

...
The brain is a machine that continuously receives and interprets different types of sensations. It is aware of these sensations subconsciously, but it selectively pays attention to them. Awareness of the simultaneity of sensations gives meaning to words like "here" and "now". That awareness of simultaneous sensations is what we understand the present tense of verbs to refer to. Words like "then" and "there" contrast the present with a remembered simultaneity or "situation". So the mind "situates" reality on the basis of comparing and contrasting its ongoing sensorium with memories and imagination. Situated awareness is always a part of the "background noise" in our stream of consciousness.

To understand what consciousness is, you have to consider how attention works. Different types of unattended awareness (seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, etc.) are going on all the time in a brain, but they are "subconscious". They take place in the dark, so to speak. When the mind focuses attention on some singular instance of awareness, it is like shining a flashlight on something in the dark. Suddenly that thing springs into the foreground. This flashlight of consciousness can be focused anywhere on background "subconscious" awareness, so who is holding that light and why does that agent illuminate different places in its sensorium or running train of thought?
...

Here's some of my thoughts on the subject from previous posts:

... As I've said before, I see the brain as a model-making machine. It somehow creates models of things in its environment and it can do so subconsciously. Actually mostly subconsciously. In other words it acts like a machine. I see the self (and by inference the conscious awareness of self) as a model that develops from a very young age. Before one is even aware of what a brain is. It's like an interactive book used to keep records of past behavior in order that the brain can predict what the self is likely to do in the future. The will represents the predicted outcome. I predict I'll choose chocolate when I go out for ice cream. When the prediction turns out to be wrong and I come back with vanilla it's because "I changed my mind", when in fact it was just a bad guess. So consciousness can effect the outcome but it doesn't control it anymore than a character in a book does. But it's not an illusion. It ceases to be an illusion when one realizes its an abstract representation. Just like all the other things we know of. We know things by their relationships to other things. Not as some absolute essence. So the bottom line is that consciousness can have a purpose and yet not be the source of one's motivation, or will.

My own evolving theory of consciousness is that it has to do with how the human brain, and brains in general, create models of their environment. For humans, at least, one of these models is of the self. Actually it's difficult for me to see how an organism could survive within it's environment without some way to recognize it's own existence. So this is the minimum requirement for me to consider any system as being conscious. Its the ability to be aware of at least two models and to compare and contrast them and catagorize them as independent in some way. Understand how brains create models and we will be able to explain consciousness.

...
It's important to differentiate between awareness and consciousness.

I agree, that's the main problem in a nutshell. I've gotten part way there by postulating that the self is only a model, in the same way as the brain creates any model. And the characteristics of the self are based on, for the most part, the various other human beings we identify as similar to what we experience about ourselves. Our immediate family for the most part. It's really the reverse of the "theory of mind" hypothesis, wherein I supposedly recognize consciousness in others in the ways they interact similarly to the way I do. But I think it's really the opposite case. My own identity is based on (and constantly changes in response to) those I see around me. The difference between this particular model and all the others is that there is so much more to be aware of, on a continuous basis, and from a largely privileged perspective. I would say awareness is just one step above perception while consciousness is a special category of awareness. Perception describes the singular nature of an experience. Awareness is the perception of one thing with respect to another. Consciousness is the awareness of one thing with respect to this thing we call the self.

...

One last thing about what you called "an inner experience, an inner feeling". I think all feelings come down to levels of anxiety vs serenity. Anxiety is counterproductive at the fundamental level. Generally anxiety needs to be minimized, and I think the brain has evolved mainly in response to that need. Anxiety reflects an excessive use of energy and the creation of excess heat within the brain. I think there must be a primal need to minimize overall levels of anxiety. Therefore we identify various flavors of good feelings with harmony and serenity and bad feelings with conflict and anxiety. Of course its more complicated that this when we consider the larger picture and the long term benefits that short term anxiety can bring. But feelings largely reflect how ideas and experiences effect our own survival.

Have to go. Back on Monday.

 

[untermensche]

In the case of the Necker Cube, I might guess that the trigger for a viewer system to shift its perception is the system 'trying to get it right', because the system functions better in the world if it gets the world 'right' (eg working out what's in the foreground and what's in the background).

The Necker Cube is an easy demonstration to show that we can change our perspective purposefully.

The question is: When one cube changes to another on command what is giving the command?

 

[ruby sparks]

In the case of the Necker Cube, I might guess that the trigger for a viewer system to shift its perception is the system 'trying to get it right', because the system functions better in the world if it gets the world 'right' (eg working out what's in the foreground and what's in the background).

The Necker Cube is an easy demonstration to show that we can change our perspective purposefully.

The question is: When one cube changes to another on command what is giving the command?

Ok I'll guess. The little man inside your head?

 

[DBT]

Meh, semantics. By definition, to be aware you must be conscious. There appears to be a lot of overlap.

Blindsight.

Blindsight is an aberration, the brain acquires the necessary information to form vision but responds to it unconsciously. Many forms of response are unconscious, nerve loops/ reflex actions, for example. But I wasn't talking about unconscious response.

Next, why isnt the necker cube shifting priming rather than shifting attention?

We are looking at the cube, we are conscious of it, we are aware of the cube and while we are aware of the cube our perspective shifts from one interpretation of the image to another, forward, back, up, down, as we are focused on the image at the exclusion of our immediate surroundings (unfocused), we gaze intently upon the image and its apparently shifting perspective, we are in a state of attention,

 

[Subsymbolic]

Blindsight is an aberration, the brain acquires the necessary information to form vision but responds to it unconsciously. Many forms of response are unconscious, nerve loops/ reflex actions, for example. But I wasn't talking about unconscious response.

Next, why isnt the necker cube shifting priming rather than shifting attention?

We are looking at the cube, we are conscious of it, we are aware of the cube and while we are aware of the cube our perspective shifts from one interpretation of the image to another, forward, back, up, down, as we are focused on the image at the exclusion of our immediate surroundings (unfocused), we gaze intently upon the image and its apparently shifting perspective, we are in a state of attention,

I’m not sure that arguing something is something by definition achieves the ends you require it to. Either way I wasn’t denying we were paying attention to Necker cubes, I was denying that the mechanism that causes the change is shifting attention, from foreground to background, but to different priming. Priming that sets up the top down aspects of vision to interpret the ambiguous aspects of the information coming from the bottom up processes in a different manner.

If you are unsure about this, I offer you a simple experiment: remain focussed on the same point of the ambiguous object and imagine it in the opposite state, or describe it in the different state and you will, either immediately, or with a little practice, discover that you can change interpretation without shifting attention.

I’d also note that the word ‘unconscious’ is a rather technical term introduced by Freud and his disciples which is thus either a technical term with significant baggage or a folk bastardisation of it with all the clarity you’d expect of a folk term. It would be very helpful to use ‘non conscious’ if that is what you mean, or specify what relationship with consciousness is held by the liminal state you are referring to.

Because if you try to do that, to describe a liminal state that starts as a physical state and becomes a mental state - or any variation on that theme - it should become immediately apparent that such a state begs the question of the relation between mental states and physical states. A relation that is, as yet unmapped and, imho is scientifically unmappable. As such, the word ‘unconscious’ is systematically misleading and a sign that a bit more reflection might be helpful.

 

[DBT]

Blindsight is an aberration, the brain acquires the necessary information to form vision but responds to it unconsciously. Many forms of response are unconscious, nerve loops/ reflex actions, for example. But I wasn't talking about unconscious response.

Next, why isnt the necker cube shifting priming rather than shifting attention?

We are looking at the cube, we are conscious of it, we are aware of the cube and while we are aware of the cube our perspective shifts from one interpretation of the image to another, forward, back, up, down, as we are focused on the image at the exclusion of our immediate surroundings (unfocused), we gaze intently upon the image and its apparently shifting perspective, we are in a state of attention,

I’m not sure that arguing something is something by definition achieves the ends you require it to. Either way I wasn’t denying we were paying attention to Necker cubes, I was denying that the mechanism that causes the change is shifting attention, from foreground to background, but to different priming. Priming that sets up the top down aspects of vision to interpret the ambiguous aspects of the information coming from the bottom up processes in a different manner.

Optical illusions take advantage of how the brain processes visual information. If by 'priming' you mean how the illusion is set up to be interpreted or perceived, then the brain is being 'primed' to shift perspective in relation to the image being viewed.

Or to see movement where there is no movement;

If you are unsure about this, I offer you a simple experiment: remain focussed on the same point of the ambiguous object and imagine it in the opposite state, or describe it in the different state and you will, either immediately, or with a little practice, discover that you can change interpretation without shifting attention.

That's not something that I am disputing. We may have gotten our wires crossed at some point.

 

[untermensche]

In the case of the Necker Cube, I might guess that the trigger for a viewer system to shift its perception is the system 'trying to get it right', because the system functions better in the world if it gets the world 'right' (eg working out what's in the foreground and what's in the background).

The Necker Cube is an easy demonstration to show that we can change our perspective purposefully.

The question is: When one cube changes to another on command what is giving the command?

Ok I'll guess. The little man inside your head?

It certainly is not a little man.

And where it is I do not know.

People used to believe they made decisions around the region of their heart.

Vision appears to occur on the eye, not in the head.

Where the thing that transforms the cube on command exists is a good question. What it is is another.

- - - Updated - - -

I’m not sure that arguing something is something by definition achieves the ends you require it to. Either way I wasn’t denying we were paying attention to Necker cubes, I was denying that the mechanism that causes the change is shifting attention, from foreground to background, but to different priming. Priming that sets up the top down aspects of vision to interpret the ambiguous aspects of the information coming from the bottom up processes in a different manner.

Optical illusions take advantage of how the brain processes visual information. If by 'priming' you mean how the illusion is set up to be interpreted or perceived, then the brain is being 'primed' to shift perspective in relation to the image being viewed.

Or to see movement where there is no movement;

If you are unsure about this, I offer you a simple experiment: remain focussed on the same point of the ambiguous object and imagine it in the opposite state, or describe it in the different state and you will, either immediately, or with a little practice, discover that you can change interpretation without shifting attention.

That's not something that I am disputing. We may have gotten our wires crossed at some point.

I can stop and start that movement on command.

I can make it rotate one way then the other on command.

The command is not an illusion.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Ok I'll guess. The little man inside your head?

It certainly is not a little man.

And where it is I do not know.

People used to believe they made decisions around the region of their heart.

Vision appears to occur on the eye, not in the head.

Where the thing that transforms the cube on command exists is a good question. What it is is another.

- - - Updated - - -

I’m not sure that arguing something is something by definition achieves the ends you require it to. Either way I wasn’t denying we were paying attention to Necker cubes, I was denying that the mechanism that causes the change is shifting attention, from foreground to background, but to different priming. Priming that sets up the top down aspects of vision to interpret the ambiguous aspects of the information coming from the bottom up processes in a different manner.

Optical illusions take advantage of how the brain processes visual information. If by 'priming' you mean how the illusion is set up to be interpreted or perceived, then the brain is being 'primed' to shift perspective in relation to the image being viewed.

Or to see movement where there is no movement;

If you are unsure about this, I offer you a simple experiment: remain focussed on the same point of the ambiguous object and imagine it in the opposite state, or describe it in the different state and you will, either immediately, or with a little practice, discover that you can change interpretation without shifting attention.

That's not something that I am disputing. We may have gotten our wires crossed at some point.

I can stop and start that movement on command.

I can make it rotate one way then the other on command.

The command is not an illusion.

The command is certainly indefeasibly how it seems to you. However, it's causal relation to all the processing going on in the brain rather suggests that it is. We might not be able to track mental states, but we certainly can track contentful states and the fact is that one defining feature of mental states is their aboutness - about content. Track the content and how it is processes and you are on top of the easy problem of consciousness and the easy problem does rather constrain the hard problem, because mental states cannot be in advance of the content that they represent.

Unless, of course, the central processing strategy of the brain is error correction and rather more of the processing going on in the brain is top down, and testing preexisting models of the world.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Would it be better to say that conscious awareness is attention?

By definition, to be aware you must be conscious.

Not true.

While consciousness is very often defined by calling on awareness, awareness is usually not defined by calling on consciousness but instead on knowledge and information.

Consciousness has a broader meaning than awareness.

And, typically, the way consciousness is discussed here, it is about what consciousness is or its nature. Nobody is ever debating the nature of awareness.

Typically, we'll have no problem attributing awareness to animals, even small creatures. It goes without saying.

Attributing consciousness to animals, on the other hand, is much more controversial and, basically, we usually accept that we don't know if animals possess consciousness at all.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

And here is perhaps the crucial difference:

There is always an "object" of awareness, because it is fundamentally a relationship between an observer and an object.

Consciousness, on the other hand, is a property or capability of a "subject", for lack of a better term (but not necessarily an "observer").

At the extreme, there is a state of consciousness, say "minimal" or "bare" consciousness, where the subject is no longer aware of anything, not even himself, and certainly nothing that could be easily characterised and identified.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

So we can at least explain optical illusions like the Necker cube as cases of shifting attention. That is, one sees a different "cube" illusion, depending on which square in the image one puts into the foreground as the face of the cube. Would you agree to that characterization?

View attachment 14116

Pictures are two-dimensional but we, or our brain, tend to interpret pictures as representing three-dimensional things.

Usually, there's just one best fit between the one picture and several possible interpretations. In the case of the Necker cube, however, we have two interpretations and none is a best fit. They are strictly equivalent in that respect (maybe there's a very small difference). So, there is immediately a potential for the brain to switch easily between the two interpretations. I think this can happen as a result of either a conscious focus or a subconscious one.

Clearly, we have to be aware of the picture, of the whole picture, for the brain to work out any interpretative representation. And then attention may be described as a conscious focus, focus on a particular detail of the picture, maybe to interpret it differently, causing the switch between equivalent representations. But again, it seems clear the switch can be triggered subconsciously, so that only the result becomes conscious, at least initially.
EB

 

[Subsymbolic]

So we can at least explain optical illusions like the Necker cube as cases of shifting attention. That is, one sees a different "cube" illusion, depending on which square in the image one puts into the foreground as the face of the cube. Would you agree to that characterization?

View attachment 14116

Pictures are two-dimensional but we, or our brain, tend to interpret pictures as representing three-dimensional things.

Usually, there's just one best fit between the one picture and several possible interpretations. In the case of the Necker cube, however, we have two interpretations and none is a best fit. They are strictly equivalent in that respect (maybe there's a very small difference). So, there is immediately a potential for the brain to switch easily between the two interpretations. I think this can happen as a result of either a conscious focus or a subconscious one.

Clearly, we have to be aware of the picture, of the whole picture, for the brain to work out any interpretative representation. And then attention may be described as a conscious focus, focus on a particular detail of the picture, maybe to interpret it differently, causing the switch between equivalent representations. But again, it seems clear the switch can be triggered subconsciously, so that only the result becomes conscious, at least initially.
EB

Reality disagrees. Again.

 

[DBT]

I can stop and start that movement on command.

I can make it rotate one way then the other on command.

The command is not an illusion.

Whatever you feel able to do, 'your' brain is doing it, the brain is generating your conscious experience in response to the stimuli/information it receives from the senses. All fine while the brain is healthy and functional but falls apart when normal function is in decline. You are what 'your' brain is doing.

 

[DBT]

Would it be better to say that conscious awareness is attention?

By definition, to be aware you must be conscious.

Not true.

While consciousness is very often defined by calling on awareness, awareness is usually not defined by calling on consciousness but instead on knowledge and information.

Consciousness has a broader meaning than awareness.

And, typically, the way consciousness is discussed here, it is about what consciousness is or its nature. Nobody is ever debating the nature of awareness.

Typically, we'll have no problem attributing awareness to animals, even small creatures. It goes without saying.

Attributing consciousness to animals, on the other hand, is much more controversial and, basically, we usually accept that we don't know if animals possess consciousness at all.
EB

How is it possible to be conscious without being aware? How is it possible to be aware without being conscious? We cannot be aware of anything when unconscious. We may be unaware of many things when conscious...but, necessarily, aware of something at least.

Consciousness is a broad term referring to a collection of attributes, features and abilities, awareness being an inseparable aspect of Consciousness/being conscious.

I know that that what I say is partly a problem of semantics.