Brain Physiology, Cognition and Consciousness group: topic
This is a public discussion board
The quest for a definition of the term 'consciousness'
Hans Ricke
Saturday, 17 May 2008 08:55 UTC
Arnold chose this expression of a quest to refer to what I am doing elsewhere, in fact almost fulltime since a while.
And he also gave his own definition, which is a remarkable one :
“I suggest the following succinct definition:
Consciousness is a transparent phenomenal experience of the world from a privileged egocentric perspective."
My actual concern is the situation that no generally agreed upon definition or a set of definitions exists within the fields of science that are working on the phenomenon of consciousness. This missing definition could be a kind of minimal consensus, with very few properties, but even that does not seem to exist.
There are many different views on this matter:
Thomas Metzinger: – an ill-defined term
David Chalmers: – we need more definitions
Christof Koch: – we just need a rough definition
Max Velmans: – we follow the common usage in which the term “consciousness” is synonymous with “awareness” or “conscious awareness”
Andrew Brook: – It is unlikely that consciousness studies will ever achieve a sound scientific footing with such an imprecise and ungainly conceptual toolbox
( these statements – Chalmers and Koch – not to be taken literally, but from how I remember the talks )
My idea that a well founded group of veteran consciousness researchers should be locked up like in a ‘conclave’ until they have come up with some sensible agreement has not been entirely embraced, which may be due to many reasons.
I still think this task is overdue and the current situation is almost embarrassing and it is the obligation of those people who want to establish a science of consciousness.
So getting back to Arnold’s definition I do not think it is possible to find wider agreement upon a definition like that. Also I believe a process of definition will need a longer determined effort, in which properties will be included others will be excluded. As long as there is not even undisputed wether consciousness is a real or an illusiory phenomenon, as long as there is still unlclear wether consciousness is only receptive or as well active, we are facing quite some task, but I think it is worth going for it.
references:
Max Velmans on Defining Consciousness
Andrew Brook on Terminology of Consciousness
John Searle on Consciousness
Thomas Metzinger on The Problem of Consciousness
Robert van Gulick on Consciousness
Rocco Gennaro on Consciousness
David M. Rosenthal on Concepts and Definitions of Consciousness
Please note this:
Hi all,
even though there were some interesting new turns last week, we have decided to lock this thread for several reasons. We may reopen it when the special edition of the Journal of Consciousness Studies covering this topic is out.
Meanwhile the thread stays locked and pinned. If you want to continue certain lines of thought please open a new thread for this.
Yours friendly
Hans
Updated 07 April 2009 06:50 UTC
-
Replies
This topic has been locked by the forum moderators.
Jump to resultsResults
-
Great answer, Arnold – says the Buddhist (some of their meditation techniques are used to reach the kind of state you described).
Tomorrow morning I will check your hypothesis…
I am afraid I am missing the gene responsible for this, since I do not remember having this experience the other mornings of my days.My claim is that conscious (phenomenal, if you wish) experience requires at least some sentience/perception and some action. I do not believe we can disentangle perception and action completely.
An example. I was reading a 1971 interview with the great jazz singer Lee Wiley, she was asked why Hollywood did not contract her as actress. She said she made some tests, but her eyes did not help. She suffered an accident (falling down from a horse) that left her blind for one year, and later she recovered vision but one eye did not recover movement.
Of course, Hollywood did not want an acress whose eyes did not obey the orders of the Director of the movie. Was her momentary blindness (possibly) because of a severe loss in eye movement?This is just an introduction to ask the vision scientist if it is possible to see without moving the eyes (or to feel a touch sensation without a movement between the skin and the stimulus, etc…; I can preview that I may have a problem with this argument for chemical senses).
Best Regards
Alfredo
-
Dear Arnold:
What I heard from experiments with sensoty deprivation made in the 1960’s (people staying in the dark, in silence, naked in a tank with water at body temperature, etc.) is that when stimulation goes down to the minimum they begin to hallucinate. If this is true, it indicates that while in the awake state we need some sensory content, even if not elicited by environmental stimuli.
Thank you for the discussion!
Best Regards,
Alfredo
-
Dear Arnold, Dear Alfredo,
meanwhile you brought in many new aspects. I will try to work through them backwards.
My first point goes to Arnold: are you adressing very low forms of consciousness when you refer to C1?
Is this low form of consciousness present in humans also?My aim is to discuss only human consciousness for ceratin reasons, mainly because I think the definitors file d will be too big and the chances for unification will be much smaller.
In humans I think consciousness is going together with perception. In any way, could you please clarify you model in respect to humans?
As for activity I am clearly denying the necessity of any action for consciousness. They go together many times there I agree with Arnold, but not all the time.
A good example is digestion or in a broader sense assimilation. While these processes are dominant, consciousness is reduced to what is seen, felt and thought, more or less without any need to act, in fact action is a disturbance to digestion. So while resting for any reason, human beings are still conscious of what their senses provide and what inner experiences like thought they have.
-
I must say I really hate this software, hopefully we will get an upgrade soon.
Sensory deprivation is an extreme unnatural situation, which was heavily criticised when I was at the university. What knowledge can we acquire from it? Is far as I remember hallucinations occur after quite some time only, what continues to happen though and that is a parallel to most meditation techniques, that thoughts keep coming on their own accord, even if unpleasant.
I think a definition ( the unified basic one I am after ) must consider the normal situation first and then if we still can manage proceed to the more subtle aspects of the matter.
Maybe it is a good idea to really dive into the se two aspects to outline the chances of implementation of subtle differences into a unified basic definition of consciousness.
-
Looking at the common conscious experience we have during the day. I agree action will be there much, unless someone is resting etc. The question that arises here is what do we count as action? You refer to the motorcortex so I think skeletal muscle movement is what you refer to. In that case, I clearly see many situations when people are aware of there environment without any reaction from their skeletal muscles.
There may not even be emotional or thought reactions to percepts. This is due in my opinion to the fact that in many common situations there is a strong base activity from emotions and thoughts which is intrinsic and due to inner goings on. -
On second thought about Arnold’s C1 proposal it makes sense to me. It seems to refer to a short period while waking up. It may be just seconds, right?
Even that it appears sensible, do you think it would have a chance to be implemented in a basic unified definition of consciousness? And if not how to adress this kind of property?
We must be aware that there are many theories around and most probably a basic unified definition cannot refer to every aspect within those theories.
-
Quoting Arnold:“But to get back to your last question, as you can see from the above comments, I do not agree that consciousness is activated only when the subject is perceiving or acting.”
This includes one of the most important properties of consciousness. It is active and in ( maybe ) another sense not active too, thus it requires activation.
I think this property has to be included in a defintion and I also think it should be generally agreable. This leads into the well established topic of vigilance.
-
On a third thought on the C1 stage Arnold has mentioned: if it is meant in a regular chronology of how we wake up, it would not be valid, because sometimes we wake up from a dream. In that case the dream content, however we classify that, will be the first content.
If it is meant as the most rudmentary content of consciousness, certainly presensory and prethought, it makes sense.
-
Hans wrote: “Looking at the common conscious experience we have during the day. I agree action will be there much, unless someone is resting etc. The question that arises here is what do we count as action? You refer to the motorcortex so I think skeletal muscle movement is what you refer to. In that case, I clearly see many situations when people are aware of there environment without any reaction from their skeletal muscles.”
Alfredo – I am not making my argument for “situations”. In fact, my claim is essentially evolutionary in the sense that consciousness is what it is because it is in charge of controlling skeletal muscles.
It may be possible to paralyse all skeletal muscles at some moment, the person remaining conscious – because the effects of the evolutionary process have already shaped her brain and such an “internalization” process allows the brain to function in “simulation mode” (here I borrow from the vocabulary of CD and DVD burners).
On the other hand, if consciousness is just sentience then you would have to ascribe it to plants too. My position rules out plant consciousness on the basis of the absence of action.Hans: “There may not even be emotional or thought reactions to percepts. This is due in my opinion to the fact that in many common situations there is a strong base activity from emotions and thoughts which is intrinsic and due to inner goings on.”
Alfredo – This inner activity alone I consider to be merely simulation, not real experience. It is genetically (in Piaget´s sense) dependent on sensorimotor activities. This is the result of an internalization process. If you assume it as primitive I am afraid this assumption leads to a strong modality of dualism (substance dualism).
Best Regards
Alfredo
-
Hans and Alfredo,
Hans wrote:
>If it [C1] is meant as the most rudmentary content of consciousness, certainly presensory and prethought, it makes sense.<
This is exactly the meaning of C1 that I mean to convey.
I realize the difficulty people have in accepting the idea that consciousness is a necessary precondition for perception, but unless the distinction between consciousness and perception is grasped we cannot understand the biological foundation of consciousness. The neuronal structure and dynamics of the retinoid system makes this distinction clear.
At this very moment you are reading these words. Suppose your telephone now rings. In this case you will perceive the ringing sound somewhere in the space around you. You will have a sense of its direction and distance from you within the 3D space of the continuous, coherent, egocentric world around you. This primitive phenomenal world was activated the moment you awoke from deep sleep and will be your constant background conscious experience until you fall asleep again. All of your perceptions are evoked within this phenomenal space.
Why are we not normally cognizant of C1? I suspect it is because, once activated, egocentric space per se is a constant presence which we notice only by indirect evidence of its absence. We cannot normally direct our attention to the unchanging global expanse of the phenomenal world in which we remain the fixed origin/center, even though we have a rudimentary sense of being at the center of the world of our experience. It is much easier to accept perception as evidence of consciousness because its particular phenomenal contents are constantly changing within the plenum of the unchanging egocentric space of the retinoid system.
Best,
Arnold
Results
-
