Definitions of Consciousness: The Poll

[OLDMAN]

Are not even simple life forms conscious to various degrees? Flowers close up at night, etc. While not mentally conscious, clearly their system can tell the difference between day and night. So they react to their environment.

So to me the best and simplest definition of consciousness is: The ability of living organisms to be aware of the environment in which they live.

I'm not sure if flowers have any awareness. They may do, in which case they would qualify as conscious, but...it seems unlikely. Not that we can ever know. I can't even know if you or any other human is actually conscious, let alone a plant.

But this needn't affect the definition of consciousness as awareness, which I'm very much in favour of, at this point (subject to being persuaded otherwise).

I believe we have to rethink our idea that ours is the only system that defines awareness, after all it is the system that does this and not our human aspect. Someday we may know more, especially if we discover alien life on other planets. But here is an interesting viewpoint.

 

[ruby sparks]

I believe we have to rethink our idea that ours is the only system that defines awareness, after all it is the system that does this and not our human aspect. Someday we may know more, especially if we discover alien life on other planets. But here is an interesting viewpoint.

I'm fine with not assuming that this or that thing doesn't experience consciousness, but I'm not sure we have yet have to think that trees do.

As for not being the only systems, sure. My guess is that lots of other systems have it. Other animals for instance. Though I can't be sure.

But two systems communicating does not, it seems, imply or require consciousness. The machines we manufacture talk to each other all the time nowadays.

 

[ruby sparks]

That said, I'm fine with the idea of a spectrum. There are, imo, probably levels of consciousness rather than it merely being a have or have not issue. I think of a dimmer switch rather than an on-off switch, blurred thresholds, even in our own case. This makes sense to anaesthetists for example (response to pain being one of their measures). I don't fundamentally see a reason to say that certain other entities don't experience, as an upper limit, what I might describe as 'the dimmer switch turned way, way down low'. Let's face it, it has to emerge at some point, and it seems unlikely it emerges (or if you prefer emerged, at some point in evolutionary time) fully-fledged in this entity or that one.

 

[DBT]

Conscious dreams would appear to qualify as a form of consciousness. Some are conscious but immediately forgotten upon waking, other dreams appear to be unconscious brain activity, the brain processing information, consolidating memory, etc.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I'm a property dualist. I think there is only one sort of stuff, but that it can have more than one property. In this case, my claim is that the biological and the mental are the same thing seen from different perspectives.

And then, what is it exactly that might be doing the seeing along those two different perspectives? You seem in need of some third party. A vantage point?

Personally I'm less concerned about sceptical problems of correspondence between experience and reality than coherence across and between theories.

So I guess you must be concerned about the coherence of your own two-property theory with nothing in it to afford the necessary vantage point.

Sure, I can sit rocking silently as I disbelieve everything but the raw experience occurring at this precise moment ands fail to trust memory, cognition and reason. Or alternatively I can get off my arse and start from the far more reasonable perspective that the product of several thousand years of flailing and a few hundred years of really systematic, and largely improving, theorising all fits together rather well. Now, that could be a malign demon who has designed the world to systematically bullshit me, but that's even sillier than most religious claims. As such, I'll rely on the assumption that when a lot of theory fits together quite well across quite a lot of science, the odds are spectacularly good that this is because the theories are a pretty good model of a coherent, consistent world that's really out there.

Let's assume for a moment there's a physical world. Then, to be a good one, a theory needs only be consistent with our experience. We don't need to pretend that the theory represents this physical word as it is. And so we don't have to pretend we know the physical world. Consistence with our experience is good enough.

And then, whenever our theory is discovered to be inconsistent with our experience then we can change the theory, without having to disgracefully recant a belief that the theory we just discarded represented the physical world as it was.

That's if there's what we think of as a physical world. What you actually know in any case is your experience. The physical world is a matter of belief, not only as to what it might be, but equally as to whether it exists at all. That's what being a sceptic means.

Yet, sceptic as I am, I still know I know my own experience, like everybody else presumably. So that's a very good start. And I can have any alternative theory I fancy about the physical world as long as it is consistent with my experience. And, in effect, I've just outlined such a theory and it's good enough apparently to keep me alive. Indeed, for a long time I had no theory to speak of, and it was also good enough to have kept me alive at the time.

I'm just pointing out that the problem of other minds is a problem. If you think not then feel free to tell me what red looks like to me. I'm red green colour blind, but can use colour terms pretty well perfectly except in extreme circumstances.

Obviously, yes.

Oh, and I'm curious as to what your definition of 'knowledge' is, because you seem to be applying it to non conceptualised and non procedural states and that's a pretty heterodox way of using it within philosophy of mind.

Nothing too innovative, I think. It's knowledge by acquaintance.

Knowledge by acquaintance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_by_acquaintance

Grote
In 1865, philosopher John Grote distinguished between what he described as "knowledge of acquaintance" and "knowledge-about". Grote noted that these distinctions were made in many languages. He cited Greek (γνωναι and ειδεναι), Latin (noscere and scire), German (kennen and wissen), and French (connaître and savoir) as examples. Grote's "knowledge of acquaintance" is far better known today as "knowledge by acquaintance" following Russell's decision to change the preposition in a paper that he read to the Aristotelian Society on 6 March 1911.

Helmholtz
In a similar fashion, in 1868 Hermann von Helmholtz clearly distinguished between das Kennen, the knowledge that consisted of "mere familiarity with phenomena", and das Wissen, "the knowledge of [phenomena] which can be communicated by speech". Stressing that the Kennen sort of knowledge could not "compete with" the Wissen sort of knowledge, Helmholtz argued that, despite the fact that it might be of "the highest possible degree of precision and certainty", the Kennen kind of knowledge can not be expressed in words, "even to ourselves".

James
In 1890, William James, agreeing there were two fundamental kinds of knowledge, and adopting Grote's terminology, further developed the distinctions made by Grote and Helmholtz

Now is a good time to update your theory of knowledge, I suppose.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I'm starting to think a second poll on a more limited range of options might become doable. No options on its own got enough votes to "win".

It also occurred to me that those who provided the definitions may want to adapt them to take into account something said in this thread (or elsewhere), or even something they rather like in other definitions! So, if that's what you would like to do, now is the time to do it!

It's also an opportunity for one or two new definitions. However, these would need to be very different, in some way, from those already in competition. The idea is to get the "don't know" and the "none of the above" as low as possible. It's up to you to come up with something good enough to achieve this result.

Thanks.
EB

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm starting to think a second poll on a more limited range of options might become doable. No options on its own got enough votes to "win".

It also occurred to me that those who provided the definitions may want to adapt them to take into account something said in this thread (or elsewhere), or even something they rather like in other definitions! So, if that's what you would like to do, now is the time to do it!

It's also an opportunity for one or two new definitions. However, these would need to be very different, in some way, from those already in competition. The idea is to get the "don't know" and the "none of the above" as low as possible. It's up to you to come up with something good enough to achieve this result.

Thanks.
EB

Thanks for the opportunity.

I would, on reflection, offer the definition 'awareness'. Consciousness is awareness.

I'm deliberately leaving out anything else, such as 'of an environment' or 'knowledge'.

 

[Subsymbolic]

And then, what is it exactly that might be doing the seeing along those two different perspectives? You seem in need of some third party. A vantage point?

Nope. Thanks for the leading question though. I think I used the word 'user illusion' already. First there's what it feels like to be that system, second there's the re-description in language in such a way that the body, user illusion and narrative are integrated, in narrative. It's not unlike Dennett's position but without the linguistic behaviourism.

So I guess you must be concerned about the coherence of your own two-property theory with nothing in it to afford the necessary vantage point.

Nope.

Let's assume for a moment there's a physical world. Then, to be a good one, a theory needs only be consistent with our experience. We don't need to pretend that the theory represents this physical word as it is. And so we don't have to pretend we know the physical world. Consistence with our experience is good enough.

And then, whenever our theory is discovered to be inconsistent with our experience then we can change the theory, without having to disgracefully recant a belief that the theory we just discarded represented the physical world as it was.

That's if there's what we think of as a physical world. What you actually know in any case is your experience. The physical world is a matter of belief, not only as to what it might be, but equally as to whether it exists at all. That's what being a sceptic means.

Yet, sceptic as I am, I still know I know my own experience, like everybody else presumably. So that's a very good start. And I can have any alternative theory I fancy about the physical world as long as it is consistent with my experience. And, in effect, I've just outlined such a theory and it's good enough apparently to keep me alive. Indeed, for a long time I had no theory to speak of, and it was also good enough to have kept me alive at the time.

Of course you had a theory, it was just an unexamined theory instantiated in your architecture and practice. That's the problem with scepticism. People get carried away with this metaphysical alkahest, forgetting that it really would dissolve everything if it was real. It's only because it isn't a problem at all that people can even worry about it. Sure, working from correspondence across theories, some of which are a priori, doesn't guarantee that the ultimate substrate is a particular sort of stuff. However it does allow us to know that whatever the stuff stuff is made of, it doesn't impact on the network of theories. (At least not yet.)

Obviously, yes.

Did I ask a yes no question?

Oh, and I'm curious as to what your definition of 'knowledge' is, because you seem to be applying it to non conceptualised and non procedural states and that's a pretty heterodox way of using it within philosophy of mind.

Nothing too innovative, I think. It's knowledge by acquaintance.

Really? So are you claiming that knowledge by acquaintance is a form of non conceptual content? Can you point me at where it says that in the WIKI you linked to?

Now is a good time to update your theory of knowledge, I suppose.

As soon as you give me a convincing argument that there is such a thing as non conceptualised knowledge, I'll get right on to it.

 

[fromderinside]

I would, on reflection, offer the definition 'awareness'. Consciousness is awareness.

Scientists have shown several awareness's are available at most times. In my view consciousness encompasses these to form a cohesive moment view.

 

[ruby sparks]

I would, on reflection, offer the definition 'awareness'. Consciousness is awareness.

Scientists have shown several awareness's are available at most times. In my view consciousness encompasses these to form a cohesive moment view.

You could be right and I would certainly be open to discussing that. Do you have any links to any of the studies? What you are suggesting seems plausible. I'd be interested to hear more.

That said, do you think it means I or we would need to amend the minimal definition? I'm not assuming you do or don't think that. Even if the scientists were correct, it doesn't feel to me as if that would be required. The mental state which achieves a 'cohesive moment view' might be a slightly more sophisticated state than just 'bare, uncohesive awareness' (whatever that is, since I'm already committed to saying there may not be an actual line being crossed).

 

[Speakpigeon]

Thanks for the opportunity.

I would, on reflection, offer the definition 'awareness'. Consciousness is awareness.

I'm deliberately leaving out anything else, such as 'of an environment' or 'knowledge'.

Maybe you still have enough time to think about what you mean by 'awareness'.

I'll give here what most dictionaries seem to say, just to show there's some ambiguity.

Awareness may be:

- Having knowledge of something
- Having information about something​

Or maybe you may want to use directly one of these two possibilities instead.

Other posters also rely on the word 'awareness', so getting a consensus of what it means would be good.
EB

 

[ruby sparks]

Thanks for the opportunity.

I would, on reflection, offer the definition 'awareness'. Consciousness is awareness.

I'm deliberately leaving out anything else, such as 'of an environment' or 'knowledge'.

Maybe you still have enough time to think about what you mean by 'awareness'.

I'll give here what most dictionaries seem to say, just to show there's some ambiguity.

Awareness may be:

- Having knowledge of something
- Having information about something​

Or maybe you may want to use directly one of these two possibilities instead.

Other posters also rely on the word 'awareness', so getting a consensus of what it means would be good.
EB

I've thought about it and I'm happy with it.

That's not to say I'm not open to discussion and/or persuasion, obviously. I am. But I'm happy to stick with that definition at this time.

As to the slightly more elaborate definitions you cited, I could comment. They are of course arbitrary and somewhat open to interpretation, as all definitions are, perhaps especially dictionary ones.

Knowledge: I have already commented. Personally, I wouldn't include this. Though it does depend on what is meant by knowledge. Your 'knowledge by aquanitance' seems to get close-ish to a minimal definition that I might personally allow, but on the whole, I'm inclined not to. I would say that even 'knowledge by aquaintance' is not an essential or necessary to a definition of bare/minimal consciousness. And I would further argue that if the bar is raised beyond minimal, then certain cases will end up being disallowed, and I think that would be an error and so in this case I think a minimal definition is appropriate, since it excludes very very little or hopefully as little as pragmatically possible. Add-ons can be included afterwards. They don't get lost. We are only doing a 'catch-all' definition at this stage.

Information: I'd feel more inclined to allow this, but again it might depend on what is meant by information. I can't think of anything that any entity could be aware of that could in the end be said not to contain any information. I am using the word information in a very broad sense. For example, there would be information in water in this sense. That said, since the word 'information' introduces, essentially, another term that is capable of being misconstrued or which can mean more than one thing, I'd leave it out and just stick with consciousness is awareness, which is what I think it is, at bottom. I don't mind also saying consciousness is perception, but that's only swopping synonyms. My reasons here are very similar to why I didn't include 'of an environment'. It's also arguably fair to say that if there's awareness/perception, there surely must be something to be aware of, but again I think, on the whole, the word 'environment' as with 'information' may itself be open to interpretation.

Also, I think information can be transferred without any awareness. See: trees (or computer programs) 'talking' to each other or the information that is arguably in water being transferred from a distant planet to a detector on earth without any actual transfer of water.

In this instance, I'm operating largely under the maxim, 'less is more'.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I think I used the word 'user illusion' already. First there's what it feels like to be that system, second there's the re-description in language in such a way that the body, user illusion and narrative are integrated, in narrative.

The most detailed description I know of our body is the scientific one, and it is usually claimed to be proper knowledge. Unfortunately, this description doesn't seem to recognise the reality of what it feels like to be me.

Something has to give. What do you think?
EB

 

[ruby sparks]

To add to my post....

I am, essentially, reluctant to venture into what the awareness is awareness of, for reasons given, partly also that we don't know exactly 'what's out there'.

I am following in the minimalist tradition of Descartes, who wisely laid his foundation at 'I think therefore I am'. Even though that could be amended to 'there is thinking therefore there is something' since 'I' can imply more.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I'm starting to think a second poll on a more limited range of options might become doable. No options on its own got enough votes to "win".

It also occurred to me that those who provided the definitions may want to adapt them to take into account something said in this thread (or elsewhere), or even something they rather like in other definitions! So, if that's what you would like to do, now is the time to do it!

It's also an opportunity for one or two new definitions. However, these would need to be very different, in some way, from those already in competition. The idea is to get the "don't know" and the "none of the above" as low as possible. It's up to you to come up with something good enough to achieve this result.

Thanks.
EB

Here the new definition I will propose for the 2nd poll:

Consciousness is subjective experience.
Subjective experience is knowledge by acquaintance of any mental activity, including sense of perception and all impressions of feelings, sensations, ideas and thoughts, recalled memories, decisions, and willed realisations or actions etc., as well as partially conscious activity such as dreams, delirium etc.
It is the task of science to discover the physical process, if any, that may be generating the subjective experience.

You should be able to get that it's straightforward attempt at merging UM's definition (3rd in the current poll), my own (8th), and the 1st one, which came initially from a dictionary.


I think other definitions could similarly be merged, for example those of FDI and DBT.

No compulsion, though.


Apart from my own (2 votes), I will also remove the following options, which all have failed to gather more than one vote:

The mind or the mental faculties, characterized by thought, feelings, and volition.

Consciousness is known subjectively to the conscious organism. The task of science is to discover the objective process generating the subjective experience.

Consciousness is a misinterpretation of the relationship of the self to the external world in order to conform to a hierarchical epistemology of reality.

Consciousness is a notoriously ineffable and ethereal stuff that can’t even be rigorously defined, let alone measured.

The mental activity of which a person is aware.

I will also include ruby spark's definition that consciousness is awareness.

And I'll wait a few more for FDI and DBT to tell me what it is they want to do, which may include keeping both their definitions as they are or possibly modified, merging them, or just dropping one.

Don't take too long, though.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

To add to my post....

I am, essentially, reluctant to venture into what the awareness is awareness of, for reasons given, partly also that we don't know exactly 'what's out there'.

I suspect that your thinking is nonetheless closest to those of FDI and DBT. Yes?

And I would rather that there's no unnecessary confusion and dispersion among voters.

If you could try to arrive at a consensus proposal with them, that would be superlative.

I can even suggest a starting point:

Consciousness is awareness.
Consciousness may include awareness of perception, feelings, sensations, ideas and thoughts, recalled memories, decisions, or willed realisations or actions etc. as well as partially conscious activity such as dreams, delirium etc.
It is the task of science to discover the physical processes allowing awareness and how these processes provide an operational model of the physical world allowing the conscious organism to survive and prosper in it.

Something like that.
EB

 

[Malintent]

Bad poll.. did not respond. Issue is that the "choices" are not mutually exclusive... or consistent..

What is better:

1
A
Red
Spots
Vanilla


CHOOSE!

 

[Subsymbolic]

I think I used the word 'user illusion' already. First there's what it feels like to be that system, second there's the re-description in language in such a way that the body, user illusion and narrative are integrated, in narrative.

The most detailed description I know of our body is the scientific one, and it is usually claimed to be proper knowledge. Unfortunately, this description doesn't seem to recognise the reality of what it feels like to be me.

Something has to give. What do you think?
EB

Science certainly does give the most detailed definition of our body and indeed brain. However, scientists are only ever in a position to experience, and thus to meaningfully talk about, their own experience. As good scientists would never generalise from a single case, their personal experience anecdotes are problematic to say the least. However,, as I stated earlier:

my claim is that the biological and the mental are the same thing seen from different perspectives.

Or at least, the sort of mental that Nagel and Chalmers is concerned with is. Meanwhile, as Wittgenstein pointed out, we actually lack any criteria for judging the ongoing accuracy of our experience anecdotes. The literature is replete with examples of how this can be problematic. When we have experiences in the Nagel sense, we make judgements in the Wittgenstein/Ryle/ Dennett sense about what we just experienced, judgements that conceptualise the previously non conceptual content or raw experience. These judgements are indefeasible in as much as how they seem but may well be clear nonsense as to how things are in the world.

However, I don't see why this is really a problem. As I already said, the reality of what it feels like to be me is a function of what it is like to be me, a point that Nagel has made beautifully and I note that you invoked earlier. So I'll repeat my earlier claim: what it feels like to be me is what it feels like to have the biology we have functioning in the way it does. This all gets pinned down and becomes publically accessible through behaviour and linguistic behaviour.

Science can't get a grip on some of that due to several methodological problems - the fact that only one person can ever be in the right place to make the observations is simply a practical problem while the fact that such observations can only be seen by science is clearly merely a methodological issue.

Likewise, there is traditionally no way of reconciling private personal experience with, on the one hand, biological states and processes and, on the other hand, behaviour, including linguistic behaviour. The best we can get is either earnest anecdotal claims which are exactly as reliable as earnest anecdotal claims can ever be, personal experience and tricky experiments designed to triangulate between input and output. That way behaviourism lies and behaviourism has always suffered from flying in the face of experience, just not the sort of experience one can include in science. As I already observed, there's only really a problem if one doesn't accept that mental states of this sort are no more and no less than what it feels like to be in those physical states and there's no more to say about that, at least for now. This would allow us to get on with the more interesting problem of how the brain does everything else.

So yeah, there's a problem, but science and philosophy working together can both predict and explain precisely what the problem is, precisely why it is about as mystical as the functioning of a flush toilet and really should just accept that there's a subset of stuff that science simply isn't designed to be able to talk about. Sure this give a gap that the desperate can fling their deities into, but that's a problem with the desperate, not with the gap.

So, for this aspect of consciousness my definition is simple and largely the same as Nagel: Consciousness is merely what it feels like for a brain to process information. This gives rise to the begining of a user illusion as there are states that can only be described as mental because they feel like something to be in that state. As I said before, this is no more mysterious than water being wet. it's an emergent property.

That's one side.

 

[ruby sparks]

To add to my post....

I am, essentially, reluctant to venture into what the awareness is awareness of, for reasons given, partly also that we don't know exactly 'what's out there'.

I suspect that your thinking is nonetheless closest to those of FDI and DBT. Yes?

And I would rather that there's no unnecessary confusion and dispersion among voters.

If you could try to arrive at a consensus proposal with them, that would be superlative.

I can even suggest a starting point:

Consciousness is awareness.
Consciousness may include awareness of perception, feelings, sensations, ideas and thoughts, recalled memories, decisions, or willed realisations or actions etc. as well as partially conscious activity such as dreams, delirium etc.
It is the task of science to discover the physical processes allowing awareness and how these processes provide an operational model of the physical world allowing the conscious organism to survive and prosper in it.

Something like that.
EB

If it's all right with you, I'd definitely prefer the minimal definition.

If there's overlap.....there's overlap. It's arguably a question of when to stop including stuff that as you say 'may be' relevant. But given that it may not be (recalled memories for example).....to a core definition, I'd rather just run with the one I have suggested.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Bad poll.. did not respond. Issue is that the "choices" are not mutually exclusive... or consistent..

That choices are not mutually exclusive is obviously a direct result of how the various options have been arrived at, i.e. each option proposed by different posters. The method was my choice and nobody will care that you don't like the result.

To have mutually exclusive options, I would have had to produce all the options myself. Much less interesting in my opinion.

Also, people can still choose "Don't know" or "None of the above" if they can't find one option they like. So, everybody can find at least one option to vote for.

In your case, it is clear you could have voted "None of the above". It's your choice not to vote but you shouldn't complain. It's just the typical badass attitude.

Further, if you have followed the story, you should have noticed that the situation is evolving, with possibly better definitions in the end. Something your suggestion could not have produced.

As to "consistency", I think we would all be very interested if you could exhibit which options you think are inconsistent and explain why exactly.

A bit of positive attitude would do you some good, Love.
EB