What is meant by 'consciousness'?

[Jutfrank]

After reading several of the posts on this forum and elsewhere discussing the nature of consciousness, I'm left with the sense that any discussion in this area needs more clearly-defined terms to proceed.

I don't like the (noun) word 'consciousness' very much. It's almost lost all meaning to me. How does it relate to other (noun) terms, such as:

- perception
- experience
- thought
- feeling
- awareness
- self-awareness
- mind
- spirit

Which of these words are useful and which redundant? Which need to be redefined?

Oughtn't we untangle these concepts before we continue?

[Granth]

I think it is misused. Our 'individual' awareness is not consciousness. It is a broken down, separated out, divided and therefore individualized 'consciousness'. To be actually conscious one would have no real regard of one's apparent personal apparition one describes as 'me' or 'I'. The 'me' or 'I' merely drifts around within consciousness while not necessarily aware of what it is it is in.

[Togo1]

You won't be able to agree on a definition without a topic. You're basically asking "what is it that we're discussing". In the absence of a discussion there is no answer.

I find it's generally best to sort out definitions within the context of a particular discussion.

[Jutfrank]

You won't be able to agree on a definition without a topic. You're basically asking "what is it that we're discussing". In the absence of a discussion there is no answer.

I find it's generally best to sort out definitions within the context of a particular discussion.

Good point, thanks. How do you think I could modify the question, then? Or shouldn't I bother? Can you see what I'm getting at? And is what you're saying generally true or are you talking particularly about consciousness?

Do others agree with Togo1 by the way?

[RJG]

Oughtn't we untangle these concepts before we continue?

You are absolutely correct. We should know what we are talking about, before talking about it.

[Atreyu]

What an excellent post. Finally, someone here asks a very good question.

Indeed we do need to "untangle" them. I'll take them one by one, and explain how it relates to the property of consciousness.


Perception - This is a prerequisite to consciousness, but in no way implies it. All entities that are aware (sentient beings) perceive things. But just "perceiving stuff" does not imply consciousness. Consciousness implies much more than just passively being able to be aware of something.

Experience - This is similar to the above. All entities which can perceive things will also have experiences. And "experience" is related to consciousness in the exact same way. All conscious entities experience things, but not all "experiencers" are conscious. Consciousness implies a certain control over one's own experiences.

Thought & Feeling - I combined these two because they are so similar. Both are attributes which a sentient being might have, and which we ourselves do. These are psychic functions, and they can be conscious or mechanical, so their existence in no way implies consciousness. One can have automatic thoughts and automatic feelings, or, on the contrary, one could be in control of one's thoughts and feelings. The former implies the entity is not conscious, while the latter implies it is. Consciousness implies a certain control over thought and feeling, but an entity can think and feel and yet have no understanding or control over either in the least (not conscious).

Awareness - This is similar to 'perception' and 'experience'. All three imply the other two. If an entity has awareness then that implies that it will be experiencing and perceiving things, but of course, like the others, this attribute in no way implies consciousness. All conscious entities are aware, but not all sentient beings are conscious. As before, consciousness would imply a certain control and understanding of one's awareness.

Self-awareness - Ah, this is the key attribute. This is the attribute which separates the sentient being, which is merely aware of and experiencing things, from the conscious entity. Self-awareness is a necessary prerequisite to consciousness, and not just any sentient being is going to have it. In fact, it is apparent that simpler life forms, other than more advanced animals, do not have it, and it is not even clear that we ourselves have it, or at least human experience suggests we don't have as much of it as we think. But no doubt for an entity to be acting consciously it must possess a certain self-awareness, and even self-knowledge (which implies even more than mere self-awareness).

Mind - This is another pretty interesting one. "Mind" can be defined as a "psychic apparatus which controls psychic functions". Psychic (psychological) functions are functions we can only perceive within ourselves, such as thought, emotion, movements, and instinct. A Mind is the apparatus (it's not physical) which controls those functions. And what is interesting about this is that actually independent Minds control each of those functions. This is where Man makes his greatest error, for he always speaks of "his mind" as if he has only one, when in fact there is a separate "mind" (or "psychic center" as some schools called it) for each function. Hence, we have an "intellectual mind" which controls our thoughts (which is what people ordinarily mean when they say "mind"), an "emotional mind" that controls our feelings, a "moving mind" that controls our voluntary muscular system, and an "instinctive mind" that controls all the autonomous functions of the physical body. But of course modern science knows nothing about this because they can only study the part of the "human machine" which manifests itself as something physical, i.e. they only know how to do physiology. These independent "minds" can only be isolated by oneself, by observing one's own thoughts, feelings, actions, and instincts, and of course no modern scientists would pursue the affair, since they would regard such a practice as "unscientific" or "subjective". And while it indeed could be called a "subjective study", it in fact can be done "scientifically", it's just that modern science isn't interested in learning how. But I digress...

At any rate, how this relates to being conscious, at least for humans, is that "being conscious" implies a singularity of Mind. A conscious Mind is whole, undivided, and works in harmony with itself. It's one. An unconscious mind is not whole, is broken into pieces that often oppose one another and contradict each other, and does not work in harmony with itself. It's like a mind which has been divided into many different "I's", each of which "gains the upper hand" at any given moment. This lack of unity in a mind is what prevents it from acting consciously, because consciousness before anything else implies a single "I" controlling things, a certain internal unity, and a mind which opposes and contradicts itself cannot be said to be conscious. Each "I" will assert it is conscious in the moment, that is, each "I" will act as if it was the whole mind, when in fact it is but a small part soon to be "overcome" by another part. And in fact this "multiplicity of I's" is an accurate description of our own psychic state. We always say "I", and when we do we think that "I" is the whole of us, when in fact our "I's" change all the time, but we are not aware of this. Hence, we can keep the illusion of being conscious, of being just one "I", when in fact, we are a multiplicity of many "I's", each of which thinks and acts as if it is the whole thing. And this "illusion of unity", this illusion of a single "I", is one of the main reasons that man can maintain his illusion of "being conscious". If a man were aware that the "I" that is planning tomorrow's activities is not the same "I" that was planning it yesterday, and is not the same "I" that will be expected to carry out the plan tomorrow, then he could no longer maintain the illusion of being conscious.

Spirit - This term is ordinarily just used to denote something inexplicable. All I can say about this in relation to consciousness is that it isn't applicable.

I'm not sure what else to say, other than this was one of the best and most practical OP that I've ever heard here so far....

[Sy Borg]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/261648

I agree with your OP, Frank. We don't have obvious words to describe the different kinds of response to stimuli. Chemicals react. Subatomic particles react. Bugs react, as do we. What matters is the level of reactivity, control and flexibility and control with which a given entity responds, and to what stimuli or conditions it responds or doesn't respond.

I'm interested in the graded and different kinds of "consciousness" (read: responsiveness) aside from normal human adult waking states such as sleep, infancy and various developmental stages, altered states, coma, peak experiences, focused and diffuse attention, fight-or-flight, the minds of other species, the complex responses of plants and microbes, and also the comparative reactivity of chemistry and geology.

What ultimately interests us humans is reactivity. If we poke something with a stick then we hope it does something more interesting than fall over and invisibly exchange some electrons. That's been the shame with space exploration so far - rocks and ice. We want behavioural signs that there is "someone home", something which which we can connect with in some way, that is "conscious".

[Togo1]

You won't be able to agree on a definition without a topic. You're basically asking "what is it that we're discussing". In the absence of a discussion there is no answer.

I find it's generally best to sort out definitions within the context of a particular discussion.

Good point, thanks. How do you think I could modify the question, then? Or shouldn't I bother? Can you see what I'm getting at? And is what you're saying generally true or are you talking particularly about consciousness?

Do others agree with Togo1 by the way?

I'd suggested that we look for qualities commonly associated with consciousness (as Atreyu has), but pair up any actual definitions with the context in which those definitions would be used. A definition would involve whichever of those qualities were essential to concept being communicated.

For example - a common definition used in discussions of Libertarian Free Will is 'the ability to consciously select from between realisable alternatives.' Whatever you may think of the validity of that definition, it obviously depends on some understanding of 'consciously select', as opposed to, presumably, unconsciously select. So what would a good definition of conscious selection be? It would probably involve some elements of being aware of the possible choices. It would certainly focus on decision making and the qualities needed for that. It probably wouldn't need to involve much in the way of being self aware or in having a particular construct of self, since that's not what the discussion is about.

[RJG]

Make it simple. Let's just remove the word "consciousness" altogether from our discussions. That way we get to the "meat and potatoes" of what one is actually talking about.

[Logic_ill]

Consciousness is the variety of tool(s) of what we call the living. They are knowledge mechanisms or mechanisms for knowledge. Living knowledge...

[RJG]

We don't have obvious words to describe the different kinds of response to stimuli. Chemicals react. Subatomic particles react. Bugs react, as do we. What matters is the level of reactivity, control and flexibility and control with which a given entity responds, and to what stimuli or conditions it responds or doesn't respond.

Greta, I think you nailed it here in this paragraph (...minus the “control” part).

Experiencing is the connector of “stimuli” to its “response”. Cause-to-Effect-to-Auto-react accordingly (i.e. stimuli-to-experience-to-response). This is all there is to life. We experience (i.e. are affected by known/unknown stimuli/causes) and react accordingly. These experiences, which include thoughts, feelings, and sensory awareness, make-up our entire “consciousness” (...though I cringe at using this word!).

Since we experience moment-by-moment, there is never an opportunity to step outside, or escape, our experiential reality. There is never an opportunity to “play God” and to change or control our reactivity/response/actions.

[Sy Borg]

We don't have obvious words to describe the different kinds of response to stimuli. Chemicals react. Subatomic particles react. Bugs react, as do we. What matters is the level of reactivity, control and flexibility and control with which a given entity responds, and to what stimuli or conditions it responds or doesn't respond.

Greta, I think you nailed it here in this paragraph (...minus the “control” part).

Experiencing is the connector of “stimuli” to its “response”. Cause-to-Effect-to-Auto-react accordingly (i.e. stimuli-to-experience-to-response). This is all there is to life. We experience (i.e. are affected by known/unknown stimuli/causes) and react accordingly. These experiences, which include thoughts, feelings, and sensory awareness, make-up our entire “consciousness” (...though I cringe at using this word!).

Since we experience moment-by-moment, there is never an opportunity to step outside, or escape, our experiential reality. There is never an opportunity to “play God” and to change or control our reactivity/response/actions.

While reality occurs moment-by-moment, those moments are so small that each perceived moment is a complex aggregation of intertwined memory, present moment experience, future projections, and imaginings.

So while each perceived experience seems to occur serially, in truth each perceived experience is a complex bundle of smaller experiences that occur both in parallel and at such a fast serial rate that they are perceived as simultaneous or parallel (neurons fire at approx 200,000 times a second).

[Radulon40crotch]

Mind - This is another pretty interesting one. "Mind" can be defined as a "psychic apparatus which controls psychic functions". Psychic (psychological) functions are functions we can only perceive within ourselves, such as thought, emotion, movements, and instinct. A Mind is the apparatus (it's not physical) which controls those functions. And what is interesting about this is that actually independent Minds control each of those functions. This is where Man makes his greatest error, for he always speaks of "his mind" as if he has only one, when in fact there is a separate "mind" (or "psychic center" as some schools called it) for each function. Hence, we have an "intellectual mind" which controls our thoughts (which is what people ordinarily mean when they say "mind"), an "emotional mind" that controls our feelings, a "moving mind" that controls our voluntary muscular system, and an "instinctive mind" that controls all the autonomous functions of the physical body. But of course modern science knows nothing about this because they can only study the part of the "human machine" which manifests itself as something physical, i.e. they only know how to do physiology. These independent "minds" can only be isolated by oneself, by observing one's own thoughts, feelings, actions, and instincts, and of course no modern scientists would pursue the affair, since they would regard such a practice as "unscientific" or "subjective". And while it indeed could be called a "subjective study", it in fact can be done "scientifically", it's just that modern science isn't interested in learning how. But I digress...

At any rate, how this relates to being conscious, at least for humans, is that "being conscious" implies a singularity of Mind. A conscious Mind is whole, undivided, and works in harmony with itself. It's one. An unconscious mind is not whole, is broken into pieces that often oppose one another and contradict each other, and does not work in harmony with itself. It's like a mind which has been divided into many different "I's", each of which "gains the upper hand" at any given moment. This lack of unity in a mind is what prevents it from acting consciously, because consciousness before anything else implies a single "I" controlling things, a certain internal unity, and a mind which opposes and contradicts itself cannot be said to be conscious. Each "I" will assert it is conscious in the moment, that is, each "I" will act as if it was the whole mind, when in fact it is but a small part soon to be "overcome" by another part. And in fact this "multiplicity of I's" is an accurate description of our own psychic state. We always say "I", and when we do we think that "I" is the whole of us, when in fact our "I's" change all the time, but we are not aware of this. Hence, we can keep the illusion of being conscious, of being just one "I", when in fact, we are a multiplicity of many "I's", each of which thinks and acts as if it is the whole thing. And this "illusion of unity", this illusion of a single "I", is one of the main reasons that man can maintain his illusion of "being conscious". If a man were aware that the "I" that is planning tomorrow's activities is not the same "I" that was planning it yesterday, and is not the same "I" that will be expected to carry out the plan tomorrow, then he could no longer maintain the illusion of being conscious.

I get the impression you're a fan of Gurdjieff....

[Sy Borg]

I get the impression you're a fan of Gurdjieff....

Here's the answer in an earlier thread: onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtop ... 74#p240474

[Radulon40crotch]

I get the impression you're a fan of Gurdjieff....

Here's the answer in an earlier thread:

Oh, I see! I hadn't even noticed the picture of Ouspensky.

I'll quit meandering from the subject, now.