Consciousness Survey

[BRUTE]

The subject of experience. Consciousness is what it is to be something (independent of time). Consciousness can only be pointed to. It does not make sense to differentiate consciousness into X and Y, and it does not make sense to do something to consciousness.

Pure consciousness is something like Samadhi.

This perception can potentially be related to awareness, integrated information, and agency.

brute thinks consciousness doesn't exist. he is open to arguments to the contrary.

[daylen]

Maybe when brute defines what he means by exist.

[Hobbes]

Sorry Daylen, but tbh, I don't have a clear mental model of what you're trying to say.

I am not saying that consciousness can only be defined when not focused on a specific point (precisely the opposite). I think that focusing on a specific point is required to initiate conflict and therefore disscussion. We oscillate on the spectrum of conscious/unconscious or awareness/judgement often (perhaps fundamentally in a discrete nature).

Here, for example. Sure, narrowly focusing on one object out of all possible mind objects may be a requirement of creating 'conflict,' (dunno what exactly you mean by 'conflict' here -- is it emotional suffering?), but it is also required if you want to know why you are creating conflict in the first place. IE: When you identify with a particular mind object, what was the allure in the mind that made you want to side with it?
Also: how are you defining unconscious?
Also 2: Please define judgement and perception in the context of your thinking

I think that it is useful to say that consciousness is experiencing information as decentralized and independent of time. There is no ordering because all points are considered simultaniously (or at least this is what it feels like). I said that focusing on a point is NEARLY the negation of consciousness, and I agree that this is misleading. I agree it does not make strict sense (nearly absent is better).

Sorry: what just happened? Consciousness has to have some dependence on time, in that, as time moves on, new events would be triggered in the mind in response to these events, yes?
Additionally, when all points are being considered at what feels like a simultaneous rate, that generally means one of two things to me:
1) Attention is shifting very rapidly between each of these points, so quickly that there is an appearance of steady processing on all points at once. Said differently, its alot like context-switching on a single-core computer core.
2) 'Primary' attention has relaxed to the point where peripheral attention (as Culadasa defines it) is running the show. So, you're seeing the context of the situation, but not selecting a mind object from the set of objects available to focus on.
Additionally, I don't feel unconscious during deeper stages of meditation (much the opposite actually), despite keeping the mind focused very continuously with a single object. So subjectively...I'm still confused .

[daylen]

@Hobbes

Additionally, I don't feel unconscious during deeper stages of meditation (much the opposite actually), despite keeping the mind focused very contentiously with a single object.

I think that the deep stages of meditation are like focusing on the whole of experience, so I agree that it is like the opposite of feeling unconscious if you agree with this. Only in this case you would not really be focusing on an object but instead on the subject. The subject acts on the object, but an object does not have any meaning without a subject to act on it.

Sure, narrowly focusing on one object out of all possible mind objects may be a requirement of creating 'conflict,' (dunno what exactly you mean by 'conflict' here -- is it emotional suffering?), but it is also required if you want to know why you are creating conflict in the first place. IE: When you identify with a particular mind object, what was the allure in the mind that made you want to side with it?

What I mean is that by focusing on a single object (with the required subjective context), time becomes more apparent because it can be observed in relation to the movement of the object (no subject to compare to implies no movement). If you do not focus on anything in particular, then there is no reference to time because nothing is ordered.

Consciousness has to have some dependence on time, in that, as time moves on, new events would be triggered in the mind in response to these events, yes?

I do not see why this must be the case in light of how I described it above.

[Jason]

To be quite honest, and I don't mean this in a disparaging or dismissive way, I don't know what you are talking about. It seems like an amalgamation of Aldous Huxley/Alan Watts to me.

Human beings are both historically and temporally embedded. We cannot transcend basic reality through our thought no matter how much acid we take or how much Doors music we listen to. No matter what I think, I am a moral creature bound by both body and time, embedded in history. I cannot escape any of it. Unless by escape we mean dead in a Paris bath tub.

The issue I have with Eastern religious conceptions of consciousness is that it conflates the three disciplines of philosophy: metaphysics epistemology and morality. But especially the first two. Metaphysics is being. Epistemology is knowledge. Whether a person learns inductively or deductively if a scientist takes an a priori or an a posteriori approach to his research, it doesn't effect their being, it's just a pedagogical construct. Linear, non-linear, axiomatic, deconstructive, decontextualized, decentralized, modern, post-modern, neo-pagan they are just heuristic devices determining how you are learning at a specific time. They do not change who we are. However, they do reflect our moral attitude towards how we regard ourselves metaphysically. And to me, there are only two options in that regard: morally bound to a creator or not morally bound to a creator. That's my view on consciousness. My consciousness is not expanding or integrating or free balling. It's conforming to its creator. Obviously not everyone holds to this view.

But to say that you are not thinking historically is erroneous, specifically if you are a Westerner. If you think people were walking around Europe in the 14th century talking like you are now, you are grossly mistaken. It took a large paradigm change for this to happen. And this way of thinking has historical, philosophical and religious antecedents. We can try to be objective, but we are never neutral in that regard.

[daylen]

We can only communicate using these devices. Communication requires constructions. Whether or not language changes us seems irrelevant to me because we use it anyway.

I think there is a paradoxical issue underlying our tension, and I think that this is inexcapable because the fundamental nature of reality as a finite being is paradoxical.

The only thing to do then is to play with the paradox.

[Mister Imperceptible]

@Jason

It’s funny you bring up the Doors. Morrison’s lyrics are very much of the West, even if some of his band members were trying to dig Eastern philosophies. And when he had written himself out, culminating in the disastrous Soft Parade, the last two albums they ended up making blues albums.

[Hobbes]

Additionally, I don't feel unconscious during deeper stages of meditation (much the opposite actually), despite keeping the mind focused very contentiously with a single object.

I think that the deep stages of meditation are like focusing on the whole of experience, so I agree that it is like the opposite of feeling unconscious if you agree with this. Only in this case you would not really be focusing on an object but instead on the subject. The subject acts on the object, but an object does not have any meaning without a subject to act on it.

Hmm...I'd say its more like there's a sense of balance between the whole of experience and the object of attention. I like how Chuladasa described it: imagine focusing your vision on your computer screen. When you do this, you're still aware of the desk in the periphery. The point of balance is when the background (or periphery) is clear and bright as well as the object of attention, and when you're not distracted by these other objects in the background (ie, attention doesn't shift to them to the point that they become the center of attention).
So I'm focused on the object, but aware of the subject, at the same time.

What I mean is that by focusing on a single object (with the required subjective context), time becomes more apparent because it can be observed in relation to the movement of the object (no subject to compare to implies no movement). If you do not focus on anything in particular, then there is no reference to time because nothing is ordered.

I think I see what you're saying here. The act of going to 'look' for an object of attention is what gives consciousness the illusion that it is dependent upon time. But, if you don't adopt a particular object of attention, then you just get a whole bunch of (seemingly) random stuff coming up, which is also rather unordered.

But that these random things come up over time suggests that the mind needs time to perform the processing to come up with these random stuff? In other words, if you stopped time entirely, would these 'things' still come up in consciousness (which I seem to be defining as awareness here)?
I've heard of consciousness being independent of time and space in the context of awakening in Buddhism, but, I've never subjectively experienced anything that was suggestive of this independence, so I've never really known what to make of that.

[jacob]

4)I dont see how it can be an illusion. It's a real phenomenon of some sort. It thinks therefore it is. The novel Blindsight makes a fascinating case that consciousness could be an unnecessary byproduct. Like a parasitic hitchhiker inside a philosophical zombie.

Also @daylen ...

But WHAT is it that thinks? https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501158562/ surveys consciousness within the framework of AI (when is a computer conscious relative to e.g. a human or a doornail) and mentions an interesting theory. Instead of consciousness being an (one) emergent quality, what if there are several thought processes occurring in the brain (... and just to be systems theoretic about it, I mean "in the human" since thinking is probably not completely independent of how your other organs are doing ... gonads?) and consciousness is just what happens when your facility for translating thought into language hooks into a random thought ... and the thought->language feeds back into the language->thought. This would also explain how it's possible to study something hard .. and then two days later have a sudden insight without consciously thinking about it. In this framework the brain actually has been thinking about it regardless/anyway ... only the thinking wasn't hooked into the voice in-voice out circuit.

There's an interesting theory (unverified by modern psychologists because how can they even make the experiment) about bicameralism. In this theory the brain was once divided into a part that spoke and a part that listened (practically schizophrenic). This was still the case as late as Homerian Greece (what's that -800 -- -1500 or something? It should partially explain why the characters in those epics show no introspection and how they constantly hear the voices of gods in their heads (auditory hallucinations). Only later did humans start talking back to the gods (the hallucinations were internalized) ... thus creating consciousness ... and requiring the process of abstracting the supernatural to the next level: monotheism.

This could also be construed as "emerging" ... but at least it provides a bit more detail. Perhaps some testable stuff ... if experiments on live human bwains were ethical, we'd know a lot more. As of now, the data is sparse.

PS: If you wanna check your own blindness to saccades (a theme in Blindsight), go look in a mirror and look alternately at your left eye and your right eye. You never see your eyes move but everybody else does. What does that say about your reality?

[ThisDinosaur]

I'm sure "Consciousness" has as many definitions as you could think of. But qualia is the thing. I have no idea even what an explanation for qualia would look like. I can nod along to a chapter about neuron action potentials or transistor physics or logic gates. But when I'm done, I never have a sense of why we "feel" awake. What sort of explanation would be even remotely satisfying?

[Jason]

From a historical perspective, its very simple.

As JLF states, the Greeks looked at consciousness in terms of the material world. The pre-Socratics with their mono-materialism air/water/fire and then basic perceived movements. Mythology with origination stories. Soctrates/Plato/Aristotle added metaphysics in various forms form/matter distinctions, scales of being but it was basically in terms of trying to describe the material world. Advent of Judeo/Christianity through the 17th century man defined consciousness in relational terms to God. Then with the Enlightenment, it moved towards defining consciousness in relational terms to nature - Goethe/Keats/Woodsworth/Whitman. Then with transcendentalism (Eastern not Western) it started looking inwards to the individual human.

So the basic movement in looking at consciousness has moved towards holding a mirror towards the world, then towards God (away from the world), then towards nature (at oneself), then towards man (in oneself).

[fiby41]

You are driving your car to your destination. You are conscious of the car, your destination, yourself, and your car taking you to your destination. But your car is not conscious of any of it.

Similarly, you are conscious of you body. But your body is not conscious of you. Now see: viewtopic.php?p=169949#p169946

The car, your clothes and even your body comprise the material field. And one who is conscious of this car, clothes, body is called the knower and enjoyer of this field and that matter.

Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā:
That knowledge of the field of activities and of the knower of activities is described by various sages in various Vedic writings- especially in the Vedanta-Sutra -and is presented with all reasoning as to the cause and effect. (Chapter 13, Verse 5)

Just as you have to be a knower of your car, clothes, body before you can become it's enjoyer, similarly the one who knows all that is to be known is the Supreme Proprietor.

[Jason]

@Jason

It’s funny you bring up the Doors. Morrison’s lyrics are very much of the West, even if some of his band members were trying to dig Eastern philosophies. And when he had written himself out, culminating in the disastrous Soft Parade, the last two albums they ended up making blues albums.

Good point. I was mixing metaphors.

It also brings up this issue: when DeToqueville wrote about America he noticed two things; (1) America had no philosophy of its own (this was before James/Dewey pragmatism; (2) they were self-consciously ignorant of European schools of philosophies. This was not surprising as Jacksonian Democracy was now rebelling against both Protestant Republicanism and fu-fu, white powdered monarchical tainted European influence. So while the rest of the world was engaged in warring Judeo/Christianity "revelation" against the Enlightenment's "reason" (conflated into Jeffersonian deism and documented in our Declaration and Constitution) Jacksonian America wanted nothing to do with either revelation or reason because both were seen authoritarian systems who's tyranny needed to be escaped (Hofstadter's "Anti-Intellectualism in America"). So the country moved towards a subjective rebellion regulated neither by divine revelation or European defined reason, but by the intuition or "perception" of the individual. This was a distinct American phenomenon which led to the divine spark of Quakerism and eventually the schools of "mind sciences" which I believe to be the antecedents of Daylen' system.

Bottom line: its a movement from (Greek) Materialism to Judeo-Christianity trinitarianism to Enlightenment Deism to Eastern Pantheism. Those are the options you have - deification of world, deification proper, deification of nature/reason, deification of self.

[7Wannabe5]

There's an interesting theory (unverified by modern psychologists because how can they even make the experiment) about bicameralism. In this theory the brain was once divided into a part that spoke and a part that listened (practically schizophrenic). This was still the case as late as Homerian Greece (what's that -800 -- -1500 or something? It should partially explain why the characters in those epics show no introspection and how they constantly hear the voices of gods in their heads (auditory hallucinations). Only later did humans start talking back to the gods (the hallucinations were internalized) ... thus creating consciousness ... and requiring the process of abstracting the supernatural to the next level: monotheism.

It seems to me that this could be better explained by the cultural evolution from oral tradition towards written expression. In pre-Homeric times, learned intelligent people would have had much more of their brain stuffed full of works that were memorized entire. So, for instance, imagine if you had a few works of Einstein memorized, and no access or even developed concept of possibility of access to the written materials, wouldn't it kind of be like every time you pulled out these memorized works, you were hearing the voice of Einstein in your head?

Also, clear historical correlation between monotheism and literacy. The Bible is "the book" and the story of the early development of Islam is practically analogous with the transformation from oral to written tradition, with the order to "Proclaim!" morphing into the order to "Read!" as the Qur'an transformed from revelation to chant poem structure to written document within the course of one short generation. Not unlike the adoption of the internet in my lifetime.

With systems theory, the model of mind or consciousness based on anything like "computation" is being replaced with model based on "cognition." IOW, the possibility of the existence of anything like a brain in a jar has been dismissed, and integration of Deism of nature/reason with Deism of self has already begun. I guess you could just call where we are now in history the dawning of the age of the Deism of Systems, and that brings me back round to my note on the internet in our lifetime being not unlike the dawn of literacy in the Middle East in the time of Mohammed. The internet is changing the way our brains work, but not at the level of our genetic or inheritable aspects of structure of brain.

[daylen]

@Jacob
Defining consciousness as one thing makes sense when considering an observer. It does not say what the observer is, but the role an observer might play in science can be explored by assuming that it exists in some structure. The subject can only be enlightened by comparing different interpretations, but I am not sure if this is worthwhile. It is possible that such an approach could shine light on the hard problem of consciousness (i.e. why does qualia exist?), or perhaps there is no testable solution.

But that these random things come up over time suggests that the mind needs time to perform the processing to come up with these random stuff? In other words, if you stopped time entirely, would these 'things' still come up in consciousness (which I seem to be defining as awareness here)?

The theory is dependent on whatever the observer is, so the physical reality of particles and time comes after as inferrences. That being said, a human can only discern a finite amount of sensations over some interval of time. To the observer this means that if it is like something to be it, then the observer feels some finite set of indistinguishable sensations with discrete transistions. So each moment is like a subjective view of some structure perhaps.

The details of these structures would be uncertain because it changes too quickly to relate each sensation in space all at once.

[daylen]

Awe... monads... Leibniz was on to the same train of thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadology

I like the idea of monads as "perpetual living mirrors of the universe".

Also, I found that other sources have said that the subject and object merge into each other. I think this is more accurate since qualia is like being both the observer and observed.

[BRUTE]

brute doesn't believe in qualia. Dennett says it nicely:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#Daniel_Dennett

In Consciousness Explained (1991) and "Quining Qualia" (1988),[15] Daniel Dennett offers an argument against qualia that demonstrates that the above definition breaks down when one tries to make a practical application of it. [..] His argument shows that, once the concept of qualia is so imported, it turns out that we can either make no use of it in the situation in question, or that the questions posed by the introduction of qualia are unanswerable precisely because of the special properties defined for qualia.

qualia is asking "what would it be like to experience something completely decoupled from any materiality or physicality". the answer is, it wouldn't. just like there isn't an experience of "being a stone". stones don't be. being requires brain cells or some such hardware.

having thus set up an impossible question, it isn't surprising that no fruit comes from discussing qualia. or monads.

[daylen]

I don't buy it. Maybe it is just me, but the most convincing argument to me is that there exist something. Now, I have no idea what that something is. Doesn't matter, because I think that anything more is an inference. Qualia is an approximation, because language is an approximation. This observation is before rules, and this is why it is so controversial.

Different arguments sound more or less believable at different points in life to different people. There is no universal measuring stick.

[BRUTE]

brute doesn't buy it either, that's the whole point

[daylen]

Does brute think something exist?

EDIT: Or rather.... Is Brute predetermined to construct a narrative about the phrase "something does exist"?