The Illusion of Self

[untermensche]

The only way you know about another person's consciousness is through subjective reports. You can't observe it.

And you only imagine a consciousness is making the report.

When the reports cannot be made you cannot know about the consciousness anymore.

It does not mean it is gone.

It just means you can't get a report.

Speculations about consciousness are all over the place.

Because we have no idea what it is.

Anyone who is conscious is able describe their experience of being conscious. Their experience of being conscious is subjective but their description is objective. Their description can be recorded, and anyone can listen. They can, for instance, say 'I feel a pain in my leg' and a doctor can proceed to examine the leg in order to find the source of the felt pain.

Yes.

For you to imagine there is another consciousness requires you getting subjective reports.

You conclude the reports are coming from a consciousness but can't know that.

You can't see the consciousness.

But there could be consciousness not associated with a brain that was not able to give you reports.

That can't be ruled out.

 

[Treedbear]

The nature in which we experience is not a tautology.

There could be experience without a sense of self.

I disagree with the premise that we could have conscious experience without reference to the Self. That is what consciousness is. The awareness of something with respect to the Self. Experience without reference to the Self is subconscious or unconscious awareness.

That is what OUR consciousness is.

I don't know what you might mean by OUR consciousness. Consciousness isn't shared. It's essentially an individual experience.

But you could have a thing aware of a red apple but not aware of any memories or proclivities that make up a "self".

Then it's not consciously aware.

To be aware is not to be aware as a self.

I'm tempted to think we agree on the matter. Being aware isn't the same thing as being consciously aware. Consciousness is the state of being consciously aware which is a special case of simply being aware. What makes it special is that the awareness is with respect to the self. You can probably agree that this provides an evolutionary advantage because it allows the organism to orient itself to its environment. And that it:

1. Requires a brain.
2. That brain creates models of things in its environment.
3. One of those models is of the Self.

(Please remember that I'm not speaking out of authority on the matter. It's my opinion. To me it makes perfect sense.)

 

[untermensche]

Consciously aware is just a redundancy.

To be conscious of the apple is to be aware of it.

To be aware of the apple is to be conscious of it.

But you can be conscious of the apple without having a sense of self.

A sense of self is added knowledge on top of being conscious of the apple.

You don't have to have it to be conscious of the apple.

 

[Treedbear]

Consciously aware is just a redundancy.
...

They are not synonyms. They are different words with different meanings. The reason people find consciousness so mysterious is that they use them interchangeably.

 

[untermensche]

What is the difference between me being conscious of the bad odor or me being aware of it?

 

[DBT]

The only way you know about another person's consciousness is through subjective reports. You can't observe it.

And you only imagine a consciousness is making the report.

When the reports cannot be made you cannot know about the consciousness anymore.

It does not mean it is gone.

It just means you can't get a report.

Speculations about consciousness are all over the place.

Because we have no idea what it is.

Anyone who is conscious is able describe their experience of being conscious. Their experience of being conscious is subjective but their description is objective. Their description can be recorded, and anyone can listen. They can, for instance, say 'I feel a pain in my leg' and a doctor can proceed to examine the leg in order to find the source of the felt pain.

Yes.

For you to imagine there is another consciousness requires you getting subjective reports.

You conclude the reports are coming from a consciousness but can't know that.

You can't see the consciousness.

But there could be consciousness not associated with a brain that was not able to give you reports.

That can't be ruled out.

It's not difficult to determine whether someone is conscious or not. It's done countless times on a daily basis, whenever we respond to each other, by medical personal dealing with injuries, etc.

 

[fromderinside]

I want to add that an objective report is a recording of the actual words spoken by the individual even though the material in the report is subjective. Not fair to equate the two observations as evidence. Neither are evidence even though it is evidence when one speaks which points out the ridiculousness of testimony by humans as 'fact' finding.

 

[Treedbear]

What is the difference between me being conscious of the bad odor or me being aware of it?

Things such as bad odors enter into conscious awareness very quickly. But it's possible for the conscious mind to be distracted by other concerns. And we often react to stimuli we are unconsciously aware of. We need to because the conscious mind is often too slow to react.

 

[untermensche]

What is the difference between me being conscious of the bad odor or me being aware of it?

Things such as bad odors enter into conscious awareness very quickly. But it's possible for the conscious mind to be distracted by other concerns. And we often react to stimuli we are unconsciously aware of. We need to because the conscious mind is often too slow to react.

You can't be conscious of something without also being aware of it.

You can be distracted and not be conscious or aware of something.

I still fail to see a distinction.

2 words that means the exact same thing here.

 

[fromderinside]

I don't think the skunk's emission of its odor defense next to you will distract you from the bear charging you.

 

[Treedbear]

What is the difference between me being conscious of the bad odor or me being aware of it?

Things such as bad odors enter into conscious awareness very quickly. But it's possible for the conscious mind to be distracted by other concerns. And we often react to stimuli we are unconsciously aware of. We need to because the conscious mind is often too slow to react.

You can't be conscious of something without also being aware of it.

But you can be aware of something without being consciously aware of it.

You can be distracted and not be conscious or aware of something.

That's obviously true. It's possible to be neither consciously aware of and/or in any way aware of something.

I still fail to see a distinction.

2 words that means the exact same thing here.

Then you will never understand what I mean by consciousness.

 

[untermensche]

Nope I won't.

Because you have made no meaningful distinction.

 

[fromderinside]

Let me get this straight. When a person responds to input that's a signal that the person is aware of the input. Right? Now does a person have to be conscious of the input to which the person responds? After all there are many things competing for attention which lies at the center of consciousness right? Whatever is the conscious generally selects one of these when the signals are competing at the same time.

So why can it be shown that one responds to two signals one of which he isn't conscious just aware.

My example is from studies of perceptual common fate, the consciousness function trying to resolve contradictions.

The observer can be demonstrated as aware that simultaneously a light signal moves from left to right and a sound moves from right to left. All one has to do is call attention to which one should attend. But, left to his own devices the observer is only conscious of both light and sound moving from left to right. The construct is called perceptual - which is as most would agree a conscious function - common fate.

You might say for the sake of consistency consciousness is a fool. Yes, I'm magical and it's my game untermensche​. Then there's that pipe wandering through the window frame illusion - another exception needed for explaining why consciousness acts as it does. Do you even see the woo rising from your aware-consciousness merger?

 

[Treedbear]

Let me get this straight. When a person responds to input that's a signal that the person is aware of the input. Right? Now does a person have to be conscious of the input to which the person responds? After all there are many things competing for attention which lies at the center of consciousness right? Whatever is the conscious generally selects one of these when the signals are competing at the same time.

So why can it be shown that one responds to two signals one of which he isn't conscious just aware. ...

Because he can respond to a signal even though he is neither conscious or aware of it. Since conscious and aware mean exactly the same thing. So the person is responding to a signal of which he is unconsciously ... Gee, I wish they had a word for that.

 

[untermensche]

The person does not respond to anything that it is not conscious of.

You may get some reflexive behavior of the brain.

But that is not the person responding.

THE PERSON is not the brain.

A person responding is an evolutionary development of the nervous system beyond the reflex.

But just because a person evolved does not mean the reflexes went away.

 

[Treedbear]

The person does not respond to anything that it is not conscious of.

You may get some reflexive behavior of the brain.

But that is not the person responding.

THE PERSON is not the brain.

A person responding is an evolutionary development of the nervous system beyond the reflex.

But just because a person evolved does not mean the reflexes went away.

Another problem resolved by properly defining words. A person is not just a brain. A person might have 2 arms, and 2 legs, and a body, and maybe friends and a bank account. But a person always has a brain. Therefore what the brain does the person does. Technically reflexes don't even involve the brain. And although reflexes don't require conscious thought, not all unconscious responses are reflexive. Which comes back to why conscious awareness and unconscious awareness are not the same thing.

 

[DBT]

Most of the brain's information processing is unconscious. This happens before conscious awareness, which is the representation or report. An action and the awareness of that action can be separated. The subject may move, but not be aware of the movement.

 

[Treedbear]

Most of the brain's information processing is unconscious. This happens before conscious awareness, which is the representation or report. An action and the awareness of that action can be separated. The subject may move, but not be aware of the movement.

I agree. A lot goes on "behind the scenes". But I think that it's not just a report of what's going on. The brain creates models which interact with each other in an attempt to minimize conflict. And when those models need to interact with the model of the Self then we have the experience of consciousness. The Self being the most complex, extensive, and generally most active
model in the brain's environment.

 

[fromderinside]

Let me get this straight. When a person responds to input that's a signal that the person is aware of the input. Right? Now does a person have to be conscious of the input to which the person responds? After all there are many things competing for attention which lies at the center of consciousness right? Whatever is the conscious generally selects one of these when the signals are competing at the same time.

So why can it be shown that one responds to two signals one of which he isn't conscious just aware. ...

Because he can respond to a signal even though he is neither conscious or aware of it. Since conscious and aware mean exactly the same thing. So the person is responding to a signal of which he is unconsciously ... Gee, I wish they had a word for that.

Nice needle work. I like your threading. Having to provide two answers because one is unconscious might get someone all stitched up.

 

[DBT]

Most of the brain's information processing is unconscious. This happens before conscious awareness, which is the representation or report. An action and the awareness of that action can be separated. The subject may move, but not be aware of the movement.

I agree. A lot goes on "behind the scenes". But I think that it's not just a report of what's going on. The brain creates models which interact with each other in an attempt to minimize conflict. And when those models need to interact with the model of the Self then we have the experience of consciousness. The Self being the most complex, extensive, and generally most active
model in the brain's environment.

Yes, we as entities are a conscious/self aware model that a brain maintains in order to interact with both the external world and internal conditions: sore knee, hunger, thirst, go to the fridge and get a drink, etc...