For a scientific concept of consciousness

[DBT]

And, DBT, I'd like to include your position:

''Consciousness'' appears to represent the ability of a brain to construct a virtual model of the external world and self, our place within our environment during any given moment of conscious experience. The content of consciousness being composed of a collection of features and abilities, sensory awareness, recognition/ memory function, feelings relating to internal conditions, hunger, thirst, etc, thoughts relating to external conditions with the drive, the will or impulse to act, a set of adaptive and maladaptive behaviours developed over a lifetime of experience.

I propose to reduce it like this:

Consciousness is the brain’s model of the world and self, made of sense awareness, memory, feelings of internal conditions, thoughts about external conditions, and the drive to act adaptatively.​

What do you think?

It's already 165, so shorter would be better.

Thanks.
EB

Sounds reasonable.

 

[DBT]

And that's about it.

So, I'll wait for DBT, UM and Treedbear to manifest themselves and I'll try to proceed with a vote.

Those who would still want to contribute a position should act now.

Thanks.
EB

Nothing fancy. To be conscious is to experience an awareness of the world and ones position in it. To recognize objects and their relationships, (which may or may not include self awareness) by means of a subjective mental representation being generated by a functional brain.

Alright.

Maybe you could explain why 'awareness' is your default word here?

Why not talk of 'information'? The word 'awareness', and perhaps even more so the phrase "to experience an awareness", is somewhat ambiguous in that it can suggest subjective experience, which presumably you would rather interpret entirely in terms of a functional and informational model of the world. So why not consciousness as an informational and functional model of the world, including or not the self as the part of the model used to represent the organism itself?
EB

There are distinctions to be made, but the terms to perceive, to be aware or to be conscious are probably largely interchangeable. One must necessarily be conscious to be aware, or vice versa. To perceive something is to be conscious, to be aware of something. There is no experience without being aware or conscious. Unconsciousness does not include experience but can include unconscious activity within the system

 

[Treedbear]

...
There are distinctions to be made, but the terms to perceive, to be aware or to be conscious are probably largely interchangeable. One must necessarily be conscious to be aware, or vice versa. To perceive something is to be conscious, to be aware of something. There is no experience without being aware or conscious. Unconsciousness does not include experience but can include unconscious activity within the system

How can they mean the same thing when you use them differently?

You said (and I was largely going along with):

... To be conscious is to experience an awareness of the world and ones position in it. To recognize objects and their relationships, (which may or may not include self awareness) by means of a subjective mental representation being generated by a functional brain.

It's not just awareness. It's awareness plus how things are related. It's not just the objects by themselves but also how they interact. Why succumb to fuzzy thinking when the finer distinctions reveal the fuller meaning and possibly clarify our thinking? I don't mean to be rude but for me it's just sloppy thinking. There's a huge expanse of subconscious thought that needs to be accounted for and described and it gets confusing when the same words can be inferred to mean conscious experience.

 

[DBT]

...
There are distinctions to be made, but the terms to perceive, to be aware or to be conscious are probably largely interchangeable. One must necessarily be conscious to be aware, or vice versa. To perceive something is to be conscious, to be aware of something. There is no experience without being aware or conscious. Unconsciousness does not include experience but can include unconscious activity within the system

How can they mean the same thing when you use them differently?

I said that are distinctions to be made, but there is also related overlaps, to be aware entails being conscious, to perceive is to be conscious ...the ability to perceive, to be aware, to recognize, etc, being aspects of ''consciousness''.. consciousness being the broad term of reference for a host of cognitive attributes and abilities, attention, focus, thought, sensory experience, etc, etc.

 

[steve_bank]

For me a scientific definition requires a physical model.

 

[steve_bank]

A bug will scurry for cover when the kitchen light is turned on. It is aware, is it conscious?

 

[Speakpigeon]

A bug will scurry for cover when the kitchen light is turned on. It is aware, is it conscious?

You asking the question suggests you see it as meaningful.

So, I think that our inability to answer it today does not mean that consciousness is too fuzzy a concept for scientific consideration. It may be that we don't have the experimental protocol to test it yet.

Further, the bug would be regarded as conscious, I think, at least according to some of the definitions subject to the poll.

So, I guess that what you really mean is that you see consciousness as something more than the cognitive process that allows even little bugs to thrive in a kitchen. This suggests you see consciousness as including something like subjective experience. In which case, I would agree that we don't know that the bug is conscious in this sense, and we don't have any basis today for expecting any future answer.
EB

 

[DBT]

A bug will scurry for cover when the kitchen light is turned on. It is aware, is it conscious?

If the brain of the bug has the capacity to construct an internal subjective representation of its environment, it is conscious of its environment. Which does not necessarily mean self awareness. Many species are conscious but do not have self awareness.

 

[Treedbear]

...
There are distinctions to be made, but the terms to perceive, to be aware or to be conscious are probably largely interchangeable. One must necessarily be conscious to be aware, or vice versa. To perceive something is to be conscious, to be aware of something. There is no experience without being aware or conscious. Unconsciousness does not include experience but can include unconscious activity within the system

How can they mean the same thing when you use them differently?

I said that are distinctions to be made, but there is also related overlaps, to be aware entails being conscious, to perceive is to be conscious ...the ability to perceive, to be aware, to recognize, etc, being aspects of ''consciousness''.. consciousness being the broad term of reference for a host of cognitive attributes and abilities, attention, focus, thought, sensory experience, etc, etc.

I'll just say that I disagree.

 

[DBT]

How can they mean the same thing when you use them differently?

I said that are distinctions to be made, but there is also related overlaps, to be aware entails being conscious, to perceive is to be conscious ...the ability to perceive, to be aware, to recognize, etc, being aspects of ''consciousness''.. consciousness being the broad term of reference for a host of cognitive attributes and abilities, attention, focus, thought, sensory experience, etc, etc.

I'll just say that I disagree.

You are welcome to explain why you disagree.

 

[Treedbear]

I said that are distinctions to be made, but there is also related overlaps, to be aware entails being conscious, to perceive is to be conscious ...the ability to perceive, to be aware, to recognize, etc, being aspects of ''consciousness''.. consciousness being the broad term of reference for a host of cognitive attributes and abilities, attention, focus, thought, sensory experience, etc, etc.

I'll just say that I disagree.

You are welcome to explain why you disagree.

I said that are distinctions to be made, but there is also related overlaps,

I don't recognize any overlaps or the need for them.

to be aware entails being conscious,

It seems you have it backwards. Awareness does not require or necessarily lead to conscious awareness. But consciousness does require awareness.

to perceive is to be conscious ...

We constantly perceive things like body language without being conscious of it.

the ability to perceive, to be aware, to recognize, etc, being aspects of ''consciousness''.. consciousness being the broad term of reference for a host of cognitive attributes and abilities, attention, focus, thought, sensory experience, etc, etc.

A minor point, but I 'd call them component parts or (even better) attributes of consciousness rather than aspects. I wouldn't say your nose is one aspect of your face. By aspect I'd infer you meant a different way to characterize consciousness.

 

[steve_bank]

The difference between a bug and a human is a matter of neural complexity. Both are a mix of genetic programming and learned experience.

In the absence of a physical neural model, awareness and consciousness is whatever you define it to be.

 

[DBT]

I'll just say that I disagree.

You are welcome to explain why you disagree.

I said that are distinctions to be made, but there is also related overlaps,

I don't recognize any overlaps or the need for them.

The word ''consciousness'' is used in reference to the whole experience of consciousness, sight, sound, taste, thoughts, feelings, etc. So thought is an aspect of consciousness as is perception, attention span and so on. All being the attributes or features of the experience we call consciousness.

''Consciousness, as William James pointed out, is not a thing, but a process or stream that is changing on a time scale of fractions of seconds (1). As he emphasized, a fundamental aspect of the stream of consciousness is that it is highly unified or integrated. Integration is a property shared by every conscious experience irrespective of its specific content: Each conscious state comprises a single "scene" that cannot be decomposed into independent components (5). Integration is best appreciated by considering the impossibility of conceiving of a conscious scene that is not integrated, that is, one which is not experienced from a single point of view. A striking demonstration is given by split-brain patients performing a spatial memory task in which two independent sequences of visuospatial positions were presented, one to the left and one to the right hemisphere. In these patients, each hemisphere perceived a separate, simple visual problem and the subjects were able to solve the double task well. Normal subjects could not treat the two independent visual sequences as independent, parallel tasks. Instead, they combined the visual information into a single conscious scene and into a single, large problem that was much more difficult to solve.''

It seems you have it backwards. Awareness does not require or necessarily lead to conscious awareness. But consciousness does require awareness.

The very term ''consciousness'' stands for being conscious. The opposite to consciousness is being unconsciousness, being asleep, unaware, unresponsive.

We constantly perceive things like body language without being conscious of it.

Yes, unconscious or subconscious activity. A large part of brain activity being unconscious activity, processes and responses....not being brought to consciousness yet acting upon or shaping conscious behaviour nonetheless

A minor point, but I 'd call them component parts or (even better) attributes of consciousness rather than aspects. I wouldn't say your nose is one aspect of your face. By aspect I'd infer you meant a different way to characterize consciousness.

Part of the difficulty here being semantics.

 

[steve_bank]

Going back a few years when I was here last EB seems to be on a perennial quest to validate a mind-body duality and as an extension life after death.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Going back a few years when I was here last EB seems to be on a perennial quest to validate a mind-body duality and as an extension life after death.

???

Obviously, no brain can take too much in at a time so I have to assume from what you say here, which is really just outrageously wrong, that my position on this subject must be somehow too subtle for you and, indeed, for a few other people around here, so that you, and they, just go for a rather simplistic but so much more manageable interpretation of what I say.

Obviously, you do as you please, and perhaps more relevantly, as you can possibly manage.
EB

 

[DBT]

Subtlety, to some degree, may be be difficult to convey on this media where the words on a page are open to interpretation. Each reader interpreting the text according to their own thoughts and ideas, just as the subtle qualities of meaning may be specific to the poster....whoever that may be.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Subtlety, to some degree, may be be difficult to convey on this media where the words on a page are open to interpretation. Each reader interpreting the text according to their own thoughts and ideas, just as the subtle qualities of meaning may be specific to the poster....whoever that may be.

What's different about writing and reading posts here from writing and reading books, newspapers, reports etc. elsewhere?

The "media"? No. It's completely irrelevant.

Ah, but, yes, people. What may be different indeed would be the particular people doing the writing and the particular people doing the reading...

Obviously, me, I tend to become rather suspicious of the particular people doing the reading whenever they go on overdrive in their criticism and yet can't even provide even one quote to support their claim.

And, clearly, there is definitely nothing subtle about claiming that I am on "a perennial quest to validate a mind-body duality and as an extension life after death"!!!

It's just extravagant.

But precisely because this claim is everything except subtle, it should be very easy for its author to provide a quote to substantiate it. And yet, no supporting quote. How sensible is that?
EB

 

[DBT]

Subtlety, to some degree, may be be difficult to convey on this media where the words on a page are open to interpretation. Each reader interpreting the text according to their own thoughts and ideas, just as the subtle qualities of meaning may be specific to the poster....whoever that may be.

What's different about writing and reading posts here from writing and reading books, newspapers, reports etc. elsewhere?



The "media"? No. It's completely irrelevant.

No big difference between posts here and books, etc, except perhaps that books are written, composed and edited with more care and attention to detail. Many of us don't have the time, so upon re-reading our own comments we find that they are not as clear as intended, typos, etc.

Also watching someone on TV allows you to read their body language and observe facial expressions, so that what in print may appear to be a serious remark, the meaning is seen to be as the speaker intended, just humour.

Ah, but, yes, people. What may be different indeed would be the particular people doing the writing and the particular people doing the reading...

Obviously, me, I tend to become rather suspicious of the particular people doing the reading whenever they go on overdrive in their criticism and yet can't even provide even one quote to support their claim.

And, clearly, there is definitely nothing subtle about claiming that I am on "a perennial quest to validate a mind-body duality and as an extension life after death"!!!

It's just extravagant.

But precisely because this claim is everything except subtle, it should be very easy for its author to provide a quote to substantiate it. And yet, no supporting quote. How sensible is that?
EB

Nobody knows the meaning and significance of a comment better than the author of that comment, as nobody has access to the thought processes and experience of the author who made the comment with their own nuances, personal and cultural.

The rest of read and assume meaning through our own personal and cultural mental filters. Each reader forming their own understanding, be it relatively correct, reasonable or poorly grasped meaning....but perhaps never perfectly understood.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I get that, of course I do, but it's only acceptable when the discrepancy remains reasonably small or if the criticism stays below a certain threshold. Here, it's just beyond the pale.
EB

 

[DBT]

I get that, of course I do, but it's only acceptable when the discrepancy remains reasonably small or if the criticism stays below a certain threshold. Here, it's just beyond the pale.
EB

If so, assuming that the threshold is high.....why? Why is it high? What are the possible reasons for this level of misunderstanding?