Subjective experience v. Self-awareness

[Speakpigeon]

I want to subject to your critical consideration the distinction I make between "subjective experience" and "self-awareness".

By self-awareness, I mean my awareness at any one time, of a set of attributes I seem to be able to remember as being mine, correctly or not. This set may typically include for example whether I'm a man or a woman, or more precisely, the memory, correct or not, of whether I'm a man or a woman; also my name, or more precisely the memory of what I take, rightly or wrongly, to be my name; and where I live, or more precisely the memory of the place I take, rightly or wrongly, to be where I live; and then whether I have children and who they are; what's my job; what are my physical characteristics, etc. I would surmise the self as the set of personal autobiographical data as one can remember them, correctly or not. Most of the time, we are acutely aware of only some elements of our self but we can at will dig more data as we may need them, for example if we introduce ourselves to a stranger. And obviously the self so defined varies in time as we memorise new data about ourselves over time and possibly as we forget, completely, some of the data.

And then there is subjective experience.

Subjective experience may be also called "bare consciousness", i.e. consciousness by itself, i.e. consciousness forgetting what one would be conscious of. If I am in pain, I will experience pain and so I will be conscious of some painful sensation. But I can still make the distinction between the pain as I experience it and my being conscious notwithstanding that it is of something which is pain. Pain can be taken as irrelevant here since I can be conscious without being in pain. As I see it, there's no particular sensation, impression, memory etc. which would be essential to subjective experience since for each one of these items I can be conscious without being conscious of it. And personally, I once experienced being conscious without being conscious of any memory and of any sensation (including perceptions) at all. All I was conscious of was a slight anxiety and that was it, at least as I remember the episode. Whether or not one grants the reality of it, it helps understand the notion of subjective experience as "bare consciousness". In particular, subjective experience, so defined, does not require self-awareness, as defined above. So, in this sense, one may be conscious without remembering anything about oneself.


Thank you for any comment, on form or substance.

Thank you to specify in particular whether or not you make the same distinction.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

I'm pretty sure one need be aware of oneself if one experiences or is aware of one's experiencing. So I'd add that while one may experience one is self aware one needs to be self aware first. A hierarchy or articulateable behavior? It may also have something to do with first person, third person experience.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I'm pretty sure one need be aware of oneself if one experiences or is aware of one's experiencing. So I'd add that while one may experience one is self aware one needs to be self aware first. A hierarchy or articulateable behavior? It may also have something to do with first person, third person experience.

I take it that by "aware of oneself" you don't mean being aware of memorised biographical data such as your name, gender, and such. If that was what you meant then I would have to disagree.

Perhaps you want instead to refer to the various sensations we normally have that are basically data relative to the current state of our body, including our brain itself? If so, I would still disagree that it's the most basic subjective experience we have to have. Essentially, these sensations are data. It's a content. And I believe we can be so minimally conscious as to be conscious of very nearly nothing. Consciousness with nearly no contents. What's left may be something akin to a dark background.

I also don't think we would necessarily be aware that we are experiencing, if that's what you meant. It's true that consciousness seems often reflexive but it seems it's not so all the time.

So, basically, I can't find any interpretation I could agree with of this idea that being aware of oneself would have to come first.

You could try to be more specific as to what you mean.
EB

 

[Treedbear]

I'm pretty sure one need be aware of oneself if one experiences or is aware of one's experiencing. So I'd add that while one may experience one is self aware one needs to be self aware first. A hierarchy or articulateable behavior? It may also have something to do with first person, third person experience.

I take it that by "aware of oneself" you don't mean being aware of memorised biographical data such as your name, gender, and such. If that was what you meant then I would have to disagree.

Perhaps you want instead to refer to the various sensations we normally have that are basically data relative to the current state of our body, including our brain itself? If so, I would still disagree that it's the most basic subjective experience we have to have. Essentially, these sensations are data. It's a content. And I believe we can be so minimally conscious as to be conscious of very nearly nothing. Consciousness with nearly no contents. What's left may be something akin to a dark background.

I also don't think we would necessarily be aware that we are experiencing, if that's what you meant. It's true that consciousness seems often reflexive but it seems it's not so all the time.

So, basically, I can't find any interpretation I could agree with of this idea that being aware of oneself would have to come first.

You could try to be more specific as to what you mean.
EB

Might there be an awareness of a lack of sensations? Maybe similar to an awareness of serenity as the lack of anxiety? Or akin to "deafening silence"? I also tend to think we need to be aware of the self in order to be conscious because it's possible to be unconsciously aware of things. Perhaps conscious awareness (aka consciousness) is the state of being aware of something with respect to the Self. The Self being the thing one is principly aware of.

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm pretty sure one need be aware of oneself if one experiences or is aware of one's experiencing. So I'd add that while one may experience one is self aware one needs to be self aware first. A hierarchy or articulateable behavior? It may also have something to do with first person, third person experience.

Ah. I have a poorly-formed theory that we don't need to be aware of self in order to have 'bare consciousness'.

According to this theory, self consciousness is a more sophisticated version of 'bare consciousness' (the experience of stuff without an accompanying sense of self).

 

[fromderinside]

Might there be an awareness of a lack of sensations? Maybe similar to an awareness of serenity as the lack of anxiety? Or akin to "deafening silence"? I also tend to think we need to be aware of the self in order to be conscious because it's possible to be unconsciously aware of things. Perhaps conscious awareness (aka consciousness) is the state of being aware of something with respect to the Self. The Self being the thing one is principly aware of.

Would being suspended in a vat of warm liquid in sound and vibration deaden chamber get the job done, yano like a sensory deprivation chamber? I believe depending on conditions when one enters one can become serene or anxious.

I'm not sure consciousness can be supported if one has no capacity to communicate. Aren't cats aware, probably aware as dogs? If not why do dogs recognize themselves and cats want to approach or withdraw from their mirror images? As far as I know from experience studying them most vertebrates are not aware of themselves to any large extent.

 

[ruby sparks]

Might there be an awareness of a lack of sensations? Maybe similar to an awareness of serenity as the lack of anxiety? Or akin to "deafening silence"? I also tend to think we need to be aware of the self in order to be conscious because it's possible to be unconsciously aware of things. Perhaps conscious awareness (aka consciousness) is the state of being aware of something with respect to the Self. The Self being the thing one is principly aware of.

Would being suspended in a vat of warm liquid in sound and vibration deaden chamber get the job done, yano like a sensory deprivation chamber? I believe depending on conditions when one enters one can become serene or anxious.

I'm not sure consciousness can be supported if one has no capacity to communicate. Aren't cats aware, probably aware as dogs? If not why do dogs recognize themselves and cats want to approach or withdraw from their mirror images? As far as I know from experience studying them most vertebrates are not aware of themselves to any large extent.

Passing The Mirror Test could just be 'recognizing oneself'. In other words, failing the mirror test does not necessarily indicate a lack of any sense of self, only not recognising an image as that.

 

[fromderinside]

Might there be an awareness of a lack of sensations? Maybe similar to an awareness of serenity as the lack of anxiety? Or akin to "deafening silence"? I also tend to think we need to be aware of the self in order to be conscious because it's possible to be unconsciously aware of things. Perhaps conscious awareness (aka consciousness) is the state of being aware of something with respect to the Self. The Self being the thing one is principly aware of.

Would being suspended in a vat of warm liquid in sound and vibration deaden chamber get the job done, yano like a sensory deprivation chamber? I believe depending on conditions when one enters one can become serene or anxious.

I'm not sure consciousness can be supported if one has no capacity to communicate. Aren't cats aware, probably aware as dogs? If not why do dogs recognize themselves and cats want to approach or withdraw from their mirror images? As far as I know from experience studying them most vertebrates are not aware of themselves to any large extent.

Passing The Mirror Test could just be 'recognizing oneself'. In other words, failing the mirror test does not necessarily indicate a lack of any sense of self, only not recognising an image as that.

I'm pretty sure awareness is a sensed thing rather than an experienced thing. How does one fail to recognize one that acts as do you. I'm pretty sure mirror cells are involved meaningfully as well. If not, it could be a pretty big problem for the whole empathy thing.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Might there be an awareness of a lack of sensations?

I would make the distinction between the lack of sensation and the awareness of there being no sensations. If we accept there can be no sensation at all, I believe we can still be aware even without for example being aware of ourselves having no sensation. In other words, we would be aware of nothing, or very nearly nothing, say the equivalent of a dark background. In this case, we don't even figure in the picture. It would be a non-reflexive awareness. Non-reflexive awareness may be what we have when we are transfixed by what we see for example, and just forget entirely about ourselves.

However, if you are also aware of yourself as having no sensations, it's a different situation. It becomes reflexive consciousness. This seems what you were referring to here. And, I would say that, yes, it seems possible to me, although I never had this experience, not the I could recall at least.

The only experience I can recall is of being minimally aware, without any sensation, but also without being aware of myself, and therefore without being aware of myself having no sensation.

Maybe similar to an awareness of serenity as the lack of anxiety? Or akin to "deafening silence"?

I would expect that being aware of an absence of sensation still requires some minimal signal coming from your sensory apparatus to tell you somehow that it's working properly, so that you know the absence of sensation is due to the absence of sound, light etc. Without light, we remain aware of darkness. Darkness work like a code that signals 'no light', as opposed to 'maybe there's light but the vision system is not working'. If you're aware of the 'no light' signal then you're aware of something. I suspect that you can be aware without being aware of anything.

I also tend to think we need to be aware of the self in order to be conscious because it's possible to be unconsciously aware of things.

Sorry, I don't understand.

Perhaps conscious awareness (aka consciousness) is the state of being aware of something with respect to the Self. The Self being the thing one is principly aware of.

I would agree that we may be usually assuming self-awareness when we refer to a state of consciousness but I don't see why awareness of the self would be necessary, as opposed to just being the more usual situation. May you could try to specify what you mean by 'self'?
EB

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm pretty sure awareness is a sensed thing rather than an experienced thing.

What would you see as the difference between sensed and experienced?

I'm pretty sure mirror cells are involved meaningfully as well. If not, it could be a pretty big problem for the whole empathy thing.

I would think so too, in the mirror test. Not necessarily in being self-conscious, or having 'bare' consciousness.

 

[Juma]

I'm pretty sure one need be aware of oneself if one experiences or is aware of one's experiencing. So I'd add that while one may experience one is self aware one needs to be self aware first. A hierarchy or articulateable behavior? It may also have something to do with first person, third person experience.

Ah. I have a poorly-formed theory that we don't need to be aware of self in order to have 'bare consciousness'.

According to this theory, self consciousness is a more sophisticated version of 'bare consciousness' (the experience of stuff without an accompanying sense of self).

I think sartre has wrote about this: that in ”fascination” state we are in the ”raw” conciousness stare: we arent aware of a self and just absorbed by what we sense.

I also agree that failing the mirror test in no way necessarily falsify a self.

 

[ruby sparks]

I think sartre has wrote about this: that in ”fascination” state we are in the ”raw” conciousness stare: we arent aware of a self and just absorbed by what we sense.

Yes, that sounds like a clue. And something most of us can relate to. We can seem to lose our sense of self on such occasions (and our sense of time passing, which may be related in some way).

The way I approach this is intuitive. I'm open to alternatives.

But for example, it seems to make intuitive/common sense that self-awareness did not emerge (in evolutionary terms) fully-formed, just as eyesight didn't, or countless other capacities. Therefore it seems to make sense that at some point, some creature was able to 'perceive stuff' at a more basic level, without a sense of self.

We might also say that many creatures alive today could be candidates. Do fish 'feel anything' is a difficult question to answer conclusively, but we can look at physiology to see if they have the 'wiring' for nociception, for example. And there other ways we can try to infer. To me it seems likely that fish, and other non-human organisms (not sure about spiders, for example) can feel (pain for example). But is a fish likely to have a sense of self? This seems like a higher bar.

Human newborn babies. Surely they can 'feel' (become conscious) before they develop a sense of self? Ditto fetuses, who are often inferred to feel pain at around 24 weeks (I think) but...do they have a sense of self at that stage?

The other place to 'look' is in one's own daily experiences, as per your mention of Sartre. Our level of consciousness fluctuates across a wide spectrum from completely unconscious to alert. For example, when I pass along the spectrum, either from total unconsciousness as in emerging from a full anaesthetic, or more commonly (since luckily I don't have regular medical surgery) from sleep to waking, I seem to pass through a blurry stage when there is awareness, but no clarity as to what it is awareness of or that there is a 'me' having the sensation. My sense of self does seem to 'snap into place' quite quickly, but the reverie of blurry wakening (or indeed drifting off to sleep when passing along the spectrum in the opposite direction) seems similar to Sartre's 'fascination' in some ways, in that a sense of self at least recedes quite substantially.

And then of course there is the 'fact' that what I am going to call 'the system here called Ruby Sparks' can function, a lot of the time, without consciousness at all, it would seem. When 'system Ruby Sparks' touches the red hot cooker, its sense of self does not, it seems, need to come into play for it to sharply pull its hand away. Surely the system feels something in order for it to react? Even if this is late (i.e. if I recoil even before becoming conscious of the pain) the 'bare pain', when it comes, comes before the integrated sensation of 'me having the pain'?

I admit that most of this is intuitive. I could be wrong. As I recall, subsymbolic, who is far more knowledgeable than me on such matters, seems to think that a sense of self is a basic requirement for consciousness, even 'bare' consciousness. Or maybe I picked him up wrong.

But I remain open to the idea that I have got something wrong.

 

[ruby sparks]

Might there be an awareness of a lack of sensations? Maybe similar to an awareness of serenity as the lack of anxiety? Or akin to "deafening silence"?

I tend to think that if there are no 'felt sensations' that there isn't even (can't be?) 'bare' consciousness. Consciousness does seem to imply the presence of sensations.

It's an interesting question though.

I also tend to think we need to be aware of the self in order to be conscious because it's possible to be unconsciously aware of things.

But doesn't the end of your sentence suggest that we don't need to be aware of self, precisely because it's possible to be unconsciously aware of things?

Using 'aware' as 'feeling' not as 'self-aware'

Perhaps conscious awareness (aka consciousness) is the state of being aware of something with respect to the Self.

To me, that would be self-consciousness. I am exploring the idea that there is conscious awareness without there being a sense of self.

The Self being the thing one is principly aware of.

It seems true that we generally navigate the world, when we do so accompanied by conscious awareness, with a robust sense of self. It seems to accompany our waking thoughts a great deal of the time. My question is whether there is a level below this, on which the self-consciousness depends, or is a sophisticated version of.

It seems to me that 'consciousness' and 'self-consciousness' are often treated, when we speak of them, as if they were much the same thing, possibly because we value our more robust, wakeful experiences more than others. But then we also seem to value our rationality, hence the philosophical trope/yardstick of the 'rational person', and we may not be as rational as we think we are.

 

[fromderinside]

I'm pretty sure awareness is a sensed thing rather than an experienced thing.

What would you see as the difference between sensed and experienced?

I'm pretty sure mirror cells are involved meaningfully as well. If not, it could be a pretty big problem for the whole empathy thing.

I would think so too, in the mirror test. Not necessarily in being self-conscious, or having 'bare' consciousness.

Sensed I can measure. Experience, not so much.

One's consciousness of self, a reflection of what/who one is, is what mirror cells seem to be signalling.

 

[ruby sparks]

Sensed I can measure. Experience, not so much.

Really? I'm not following (yet). Could I not say I sense heat and I experience heat and offer a measure (of intensity) for both? Or pain? Or to put it another way, what is the difference between sensing heat or pain and experiencing heat or pain?

One's consciousness of self, a reflection of what/who one is, is what mirror cells seem to be signalling.

Yes. There seems to be something in that, I think. Though it keeps us on the topic of self-consciousness and I am on my little hobby-horse about thinking that there is such a thing as 'bare' consciousness 'below' that, which does not involve a sense of self, either at all or in any robust sense (or either of those).

I don't know if this is the OP's main line of enquiry, but I confess it's something I'm interested in.

 

[rousseau]

What I find interesting is how many things I do sub-consciously these days. I've become so well adjusted to my life that a lot of what I do is automatic and does not require serious attention. Entire days can pass by without me really reflecting on anything, except for maybe a few moments. It's as though a lot of my habits have bi-passed the conscious part of my brain and sensory stimuli have become more closely tied to my muscle memory. So there are even times when I'm not really experiencing anything at all, just doing.

So yes I think this would be in line of what you say, subjective experience does not necessarily require self-awareness. The self is just another object of attention and is not always required for everyday functioning. Our ability to be aware of the self is something like a separate component that plays a specific need in our life (long-term memory, improving our understanding etc).

 

[Subsymbolic]

I'm assuming that most, if not all, are clear that whatever a self is, it isn't a Cartesian captain sat in some privileged position watching perceptions arrive and giving orders as a result. However, I assume that most would agree that our sense of self certainly feels quite a lot like that is the case which, presumably, is one reason why this Cartesian metaphor lasted so long.

However, if it's not this, it has to be something, something that gives rise to a sense of self. Perceptual phenomena don't just need to be separated and bound into appropriate kinds , as in Binding Problem 1 (BP1) they also need to be unified (BP2) and somehow promulgated across the brain. For example, if I'm sucking a mint while hammering and hit my thumb with the hammer, then the pain needs to be unified as a kind, the noise of the hammer, the site of the blow and so on all need to be unified into individual kinds and then unified into a total picture of the event. At the same time the taste of the mint and any other ongoing perceptions need to be segregated. We know that this doesn't always happen quite right because some people have varieties of synesthesia, especially under the effects of some drugs.

We also know that sometimes BP1 can happen without some aspects of BP2 occurring, in cases such as blindsight. In these cases we know that people claim, credibly, not to be conscious while being able to perform acts that require the information that they are not conscious of. Their prowess can vary from statistically significant to close to normal performance. The existence of blindsight offers the possibility that an agent could have 'blinded' senses across the board, and that starts to sound a lot like the basis for a traditional philosopher's zombie.

The key insight is that you can have BP1 style binding without BP2 style binding and that partial BP2 binding is possible without becoming conscious or, indeed self conscious.

And now I have to cook supper. More later...

 

[Kharakov]

Are you differentiating between subjective experience and qualia, or subjective and objective experiences?

 

[Subsymbolic]

Are you differentiating between subjective experience and qualia, or subjective and objective experiences?

I'm not quite sure how you are using those terms, give me an idea and I'll be able to answer.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Are you differentiating between subjective experience and qualia,

Yes, I do.

I guess both expressions speak for themselves. A quale is a quality. So for instance, the quale of redness is the quality of redness, i.e. the quality of your subjective experience of the colour red. Thus, qualia are the quality of the contents of consciousness, i.e. the quality of whatever your are conscious of.

Subjective experience is distinct from the contents experienced and therefore from their qualia. Subjective experience is whatever it is that will stay the same whenever you happen to switch between different qualia.

Still, I expect that there's always some qualia involved. Even in bare consciousness, if we accept there is such a thing, where there would be no perception, no sensation, no impression, no memory (and therefore no self), I still assume that there should be a specific quale experienced, one which I would describe as the equivalent of "background darkness", although I don't see any reason that it should be particularly visual in nature.

or subjective and objective experiences?

Subjective experience is just 'raw' experience.

Objective experience is something entirely derived from subjective experience. If I happen to be looking at a red flower, my subjective experience will be that of a motley collection of qualia, including in particular the quale of redness for example, each quale experienced for itself, so to speak, irrespective of other qualia. Objective experience is a mental construct. The objective experience of the red flower you're looking at is what you can't help to take to be there in front of you, in the 'real', physical world. In effect, the red flower of your objective experience is just the same motley collection of qualia of your subjective experience but that you just can't help but take to be not a collection of unrelated qualia but an actual, solid, red flower, there, in the physical world. This aspect of the issue perhaps explains to some extent why so many people find it difficult to understand the notion of subjective experience. We're not supposed too pay attention to it as such.

Another way to say it, a metaphorical way, is to say that subjective experience is more akin to a picture while objective experience is whatever you can't help feeling the picture represents. So, objective experience is definitely a mental construct but that you take to be a real object in the physical world.

Yet, I don't see how we could possibly experience things that are not somehow inside our brain. So, even our objective experience is really something inside our heads. As I see it, it should be understood as second-level qualia, not one closely related to perception, as the quale of redness for example is to our visual perception, but somehow elaborated by our brain itself from the whole 'picture' of our immediate perceptions.

Finally, the elaboration of our objective experience by our brain can only be affected, arguably 'improved', by our constant interactions with other people and particularly by what these people say. Memory, too, should contribute to this process and to the end result. And this process of elaboration must be completely unconscious, as far as I can tell.
EB