consciousness, self-awareness, brains, rationality, and memory

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I found the following terms and definitions on a squidoo lens, here. I think they're pretty interesting takes on the terms, but broaden them quite a bit. I think these definitions might be useful in making it easier to distinguish between types of entities. What do you think?

Conscious
Consciousness is difficult to describe. Human consciousness results from the brain's effort to integrate data from the five senses to form conclusions about the external world. However, a more accurate definition of conscious would not be so narrow.

Any entity that perceives through some sense, and has some sort of internal reaction to that external data, is conscious.

So imagine a simple machine: a single button that is an on/off switch to a light bulb. The button is its means of sensing the external world, and the light bulb is the internal reaction to stimulus. Even though it is incredibly simple and limited, this machine has consciousness.

Self-Aware
An entity is self-aware if it is capable of distinguishing itself from its surroundings. This means it senses the world as external, and senses itself as separate from that world. To make this distinction may require rational cognition of some sort (I'll get to what that means in a minute).

I have heard of one case in which a woman had a stroke (see a video of her account here - it's really interesting), and in her limited mental state, she said she was unable at times to distinguish what was part of her body and what was not. She saw a telephone in her hand and could not tell if it was part of her or not. She felt energy surrounding her, and could not tell what was her body and what was her external environment. She was not self-aware, though she was definitely conscious at the time.

Brain
You and I have bodies that are controlled by a complex network of brain functions. However, an entity with a brain is not necessarily able to think, the way that you and I do. A brain simply integrates sensory data (meaning it has consciousness), and regulates the functions of one or more parts of the body. That does not mean it is capable of thought, or anything too complex.

A good example of something with a brain that doesn't think can be found in this video here. It is a demonstration of contraptions that mimic the way some animals walk. Basically, it is an incredibly simplistic creature whose only function is walking back and forth on a beach. Its movements are controlled by a rudimentary system of pressurized, two-liter soda bottles that act as a counting mechanism (counting steps). This simple system can be considered a brain, because it integrates sensory data (steps taken by the legs) and regulates one or more parts of the body (tells the legs to stop walking, or start walking in the opposite direction).

Rational
This is where the classification of 'thinking' comes in. Thinking requires computation, or cognition at some level, in the brain. It requires reflection upon the senses. Exercising rationality is attempting to come to true conclusions about the external world.

What qualifies as 'truth' may be subjective. However, there are a few things that are true no matter what, about which any rational thinker should come to the same conclusions. These are geometry, mathematics, and logic. These three things, in the form of theorems and proofs transcend language barriers, as well as barriers posed by the nature of one's senses. A rational entity that only hears things, and has no other sense, would come to the same conclusions about geometry, mathematics, and logic, as a rational entity that can only see things.

A human baby is rational. Intrigued by the structure of a toy, a baby uses pattern recognition to come up with conclusions about the way the toy behaves, when it is held upside down, when it is shaken, when it's not moving, when it is put in the mouth, etc. The baby's brain integrates data-givens from the senses of touch, sight, sound, smell, and (of course,) taste. These data givens are organized by the brain to form conclusions about the toy. When the baby tests those conclusions, it either reinforces them or forces the baby to form new ones. This effort to find out true things about the toy is the baby being rational. This example shows how conclusions don't have to be be true for the thinker to be rational - there just need to be conclusions of some sort that attempt at knowing the truth.

Memory
Memory is two-sided. If an entity can store data-givens from senses, then it has memory. If the entity can recall those stored memories in some way, then it has the flip side of the ability. The only one of these two that is necessary to say that an entity has memory is the first - the ability to store data-givens.

The ability to store and recall memories is an important function in human cognition, and is one of the things that makes us so intelligent compared to other organisms. We are exceptionally good at pattern-recognition, which means when we recall stored memory and compare it to new sensory-data, we can see similarities and differences and understand them as patterns.

However, for an entity to have memory, it does not need to be intelligent. Computers can have enormous memory capabilities, but we wouldn't call them fully intelligent (or, perhaps intelligent at all).

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@loudthoughts,

Quote:

So imagine a simple machine: a single button that is an on/off switch to a light bulb. The button is its means of sensing the external world, and the light bulb is the internal reaction to stimulus. Even though it is incredibly simple and limited, this machine has consciousness.

Derek Bickerton argues much the same thing here
Amazon.com: Language and Species: Derek Bickerton: Books
As a precursor to language, except he used the binary photosensitivness of plants, and the binary motion sense switch of some predatory plants.

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@loudthoughts,

Some of these seem to be looking forward, and that's a good thing. As slightly talked about on an earlier thread, the English language has kind of been out-dated in this field; some modifications stand to be made (I'd reason).

One which I have pushed for is that dealing with mind; another one, conscious/consciousness. The understanding that comes primarily attached with the word mind should be more focused on brain material (the various neurons, glia cells, and so on), and consciousness would surely best be held to focus on a range of conscious above a certain level. Conscious, then, is more simply neuronal and other living brain cell activities. Conscious is a continuum, divisable into a number of possible levels in a single specie's brain, as well as across species (the development of brain [uncountable noun] into larger and more complex organs).

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@loudthoughts,

Hi Loudthoughts

I think a very advanced quantum computer could equate to all you have said in your post

Except for the mystery of human consciousness, this is still an enigma and maybe the mind is a quantum field havering just outside the physical brain and it downloads into it all the time?

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@loudthoughts,

Quote:

Consciousness is difficult to describe

Actually, that is not a strong enough statement. Consciousness is IMPOSSIBLE to describe, because any description relies on your being conscious to offer it, and my being conscious to receive it. Consciousness will precede any attempt at description. Therefore please explain how any description would be sufficient?

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

Actually, that is not a strong enough statement. Consciousness is IMPOSSIBLE to describe, because any description relies on your being conscious to offer it, and my being conscious to receive it. Consciousness will precede any attempt at description. Therefore please explain how any description would be sufficient?

Dawkings meme is said to be consciousness, but to me a meme is just a seed to a thought, I think conscious reside outside the physical brain something like a quantum field , this might explain telepathy etc. Quantum nonlocality and interconnectivity might ultimately allow us to tap into the universal Internet or what I call the Super- Consciousness

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

Actually, that is not a strong enough statement. Consciousness is IMPOSSIBLE to describe, because any description relies on your being conscious to offer it, and my being conscious to receive it. Consciousness will precede any attempt at description. Therefore please explain how any description would be sufficient?

If conscious states are purely functional and representational, then they could be explained. If, as you seem to presuppose here, there is an irreducible element then of course that element will always precede description, etc.

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@loudthoughts,

But think about the act of description. 'This' is like 'that' or 'this is composed of these elements', and so on. Now in the case of consciousness - there can't be 'anything' which it can be compared to, or described in terms of. This is David Chalmers 'hard problem of consciousness' isn't it? Certainly one can describe specific states of consciousness, or characteristics of consciousness, because you will presume that I, another conscious being, will understand what you mean when you refer to 'scared' or 'drunk' of 'elevated' because I might have had such experiences. So these descriptions would be intelligible. But consciousness ITSELF is not an object and certainly not 'like' anything. So, again, it is much more than 'difficult' to explain consciousness, despite what Daniel Dennett thinks he might have done.

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@jeeprs,

Some nice reading in the above posts, along with thought provoking points. I would yet again like to emphasize that in the averaged aggregate of all that can be shown to be substantial enough to be secure, in the neurosciences, we will find that conscious is very much nothing more than brain (again, a non-countable, collective noun) and that consciousness is a certain range which is reached in 'mega-complexity' above a certain range of normal everyday ganglion life processes.

While it is common enough (and maybe especially in the humanities) to see thought, ideas, and mind as being a non-material (thus maybe 'non-object') something else, we can, when working in the pragmatic range of things, see that thought, ideas, and mind are physical properties/states/objects.

The increment of count and thickness of spines on the axon are the result of learning. They are real, they are objects, and without any doubt whatsoever (staying in the practical range, here) physical. These, along with your everyday synaptic sea (to quote LeDoux)①, make up the conscious state which when in activity, beyond that 'point' (see above), is consciousness, AND, is what it is like to be.

For that reason, I aruge that it is not so difficult to express what consciousness is like--most all of us pretty much know that for ourselves, and now we can learn that for brain in general. The 'what it is like' to have any awake and alert memory of having seen that proverbial red, is exactly the 'what it is' of having the responsible cells being there, and being alive--again, on the practical level.

① This is from his CD. (Yes, some neuroscientists do music too)

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@loudthoughts,

Quote:

thought, ideas, and mind are physical properties/states/objects.

What about saying they HAVE physical properties? It is meaningless to say they ARE physical properties, even if they correlate with 'brain states' and 'nuero transmittors', because they have an irreducably subjective reality. I mean, in theory, you might be able to examine a brain through a imaging machine and saying, 'looks like this guy was scared when this pic was taken'. But the experience of BEING SCARED is something else.

---------- Post added at 07:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:57 PM ----------

Quote:

I would yet again like to emphasize that in the averaged aggregate of all that can be shown to be substantial enough to be secure, in the neurosciences

I think talking about the reality of what it means to live as a human being - this is after all a philosophy forum - deals with different criteria than those that will stand up in a post-grad neuro science tutorial. Unless I am a lab rat, which is what I often think the materialists want me to be. Presumably so I will be 'easier to manage' Smile

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs;61877 wrote:

What about saying they HAVE physical properties? It is meaningless to say they ARE physical properties, . . .

I do feel that I understand this persuasion you mention, jeepers, yet reason that there is a very good chance that it is an obsolete one. It would appear that to say that a particular thought, for example, has a physical property, would be to imply that that thought was originally of a non-physical nature. That simply does not appear to be the case at all; it would seemingly lead to the conclusion that thought does not require brain matter at all.

In that we (taking a look at the H. sapien for the moment) do have brains, we have brain build and state which is very similar across the wide spectrum of builds and states. In that way, we can undestand that what will, of course, be subjective to an individual brain, will be similarly subjective to each brain across the wide spectrum of brains. In that way, we can see the brain in an objective framework.

I'm willing to make a bet that you too have a hippocampus kind of wrapped there around a thalamus sitting on the floor above the mid-brain in both hemispheres of your brain. Likewise, I am willing to bet that if those hippocampi were to be removed, you'd not be able to form long-term memory, and would very likely live in somewhere around a 40 minute continious present state. For that reason, the increment of thought production will go flat on the graph.① Why? Because we cannot have thought without having brain responsible for thought.

In having brain that is responsible for thought, it can be seen that brain cells--which are all living entities, we must keep in mind--in complex communication with each other are the very thoughts. There is nothing meaningless about it at all, really--although I will not deny that this requires us to maintain a certain level of practicality.

I would have to apologize for the degree to which I kind of 'present' outside of the discipline of philosophy, however, would yet argue that in regards the matter of brain and mind, the humanities will have to depend more largely on the sciences.

① This is because nothing beyond a span of 40 minutes can be remembered, and most kinds of new learning cannot take place, so the graph representing increases in things remembered (knowledge) up until the time of removal will basically show no more increase beyond that point--therefore a flat line.

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@loudthoughts,

Far be it from me to dispute the findings of empirical science. Thought obviously requires neural structure, and so on. The brain and the structure of thought is as good a subject to study scientifically as any other. However I don't think it is fair to say that the search for meaning - and meaning surely lies outside the realm of the study of the structures of brains - is or will ever be obsolete.

To give a material account of the structure of brains and the nature of thought is only to explain one specific aspect or side of the picture. It is, to use an analogy, like a piano-builder's account of the piano. The pianist - the art of playing the piano - provides a different perspective, and in my mind, a much more important one. After all, pianos would not be built if it were not for music, and music really has no material signficance in the scheme of things. (Note the implied teleology.)

Scientific ideologists like to believe that the objectivist/empiricist account of things supersedes or makes obsolete all previous persectives, such as those provided by traditional philosophy. This in itself is a kind of cultural imperialism, don't you think? There are many valuable perspectives, of which science is one. But it is only one.

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@jeeprs,

Without reiterating the opening of my previous post, I'd hope to look at some of the finer points, and by doing so, expound on why I had taken the position that I had.

I have come across a number of analogies in this area, yet very few that really fit the circumstances. I think we could agree that a piano, once built, does nothing on its own--it's not a living thing. I would also be quite sure we'd agree that if we were to remove all the hammers, pressing the keys would give us no music--maybe just a little humming, to be realistic.

Music (of the human type), on the other hand, does not need a piano, in fact, any instrument will do--because music was created by the human brain (in various manners). For that reason, music has meaning (it was created by the brain)①. Take away all brains (of the human type {for now}) and we have no music and no need for a piano.

I would argue, therefore, that to parallel the difference between a piano (its build and structure) and music, to the difference between brain (its build and stucture) and thought is very mistaken because it was not thought, consciousness, nor self-awareness which led to brain.

Emotionally, 'spiritually' (non-religious belief-system usage) I understand the divide between the two disciplines. Nevertheless, I find the evidence fully supports the stance that in the area of brain, the humanities will have to keep pace with the sciences. As Dr. Lamme (as one example) points out in his paper Towards a true neural stance on consciousness②:

[indent] . . . I think we have to go beyond finding 'neural correlates of', and let the arguments from neuroscience have a true say in the matter. But this is the only way towards progress.[/indent]

I would not consider this cultural imperialism at all, but rather the advancement of the aggregate knowledge of nature. Two different disciplines, yes, two different perspectives, yes, but we both know that no philosophers discuss the likelihood of the state of consciousness cognition's being in the cerebrospinal fluid, or the pineal gland.

If we were to talk about 'meaning,' I would firstly point out that that too, very much appears to be a brain thing. Again, I'm sure we'd agree that it's highly unlikely that the cats hanging around my house ever ponder the 'meaning' of things, much less the simple jelly fish. But I'd like to ask you to please expound on your presentation there.

Also, how might it be demonstrated that thoughts come before the results of plasticity which is learned information? (and it might be good to firstly keep in mind that this idea, 'thoughts,' will primarily be a prefrontal lobe function)

① We could say that meaning (emotion and communication, and need for them) led to music.

② Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol 10, No 11, 2006; p 494.

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@loudthoughts,

The piano metaphor was not given as a functional specification but a poetic analogy, and, as such, I think it stands. To give an account of how instruments are built is not to give an account of music; it is, after all, music which defines their purpose and which has 'called instruments into existence'.

You may say music was created by the human brain. Could you say the same of number? Or do such things as number and music precede consciousness, to be 'discovered' by the evolving mind? Do these indicate a deep structure of reality which manifests and underlies both the objective and subjective realms? As an objective scientist, one seeks to understand consciousness as the property of an object (specifically, a brain.) And this is all well and good, as far as it goes. But it is not the final say.

An alternative perspective is as follows: certainly the brain has evolved, and with it, the capacity for consciousness. But note well the expression: 'capacity for consciousness'. Evolution has 'called forth' the capacity for self-awareness, thought and consciousness whereby 'what is latent becomes patent' (as has been taught by some schools of Indian philosophy). In this model, the brain 'tunes in' consciousness in the same way a television tunes in a program; but looking for the origin of consciousness in the brain is like looking for the news inside the television set (while also acknowledging that you can't watch the news without the TV).

I prefer this explanation. But this is a philosophical, rather than a scientific, argument. The 'evidence' for such a view rests on the interpretation of the nature of experience, which I would have hoped was a part of the business of philosophy.

Which brings me back to 'cultural imperialism'. This was prompted by your observation that the interpretation of mind HAVING physical correlates rather than BEING merely physical 'is obsolete'. I took this to mean that you say the 'scientific' analysis of such issues renders the traditional, philosophical analysis 'obsolete'. To which you replied with a quotation that 'neuroscience is the only way towards progress' and that 'the humanities [I presume you refer to philosophy here] must keep pace with the sciences'. OK then, as an alternative to 'cultural imperialism', how about 'scientific triumphalism'? It adds up to pretty much the same thing. The only knowledge is scientific knowledge, and the only reality is material objects. I am quite happy for this argument to be made, and I think we have all benefited considerably from the making of it, in some ways, but I do question whether, even with our advanced science and technology, we are really any wiser than Socrates.

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@loudthoughts,

This blog post is directly relevant to the argument (by a writer who knows a helluva lot more than me.)

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@jeeprs,

To me thought is an immaterial thing or a chemical message imprinted in the brain. Richard Dawkings uses the word meme for a thought

The meme is a seed to creativity and grows if it becomes interconnected with other memes of creativity or idea.

The consolidation of the memes, become a tree of possibilities. One or more might become an idea this idea remains imprinted on the brain much longer that the 40 minutes suggested

A person might like the idea and select it to become create a physical reality like the Edison incandescent light bulb, Bells Telephone etc

All these creative idea were phantoms or ghosts in the brain of the pewrson , some of them become writing, painting, or science , and space vehicles

Music is a thought in the mind of a composer, I do not know much about composers, but one of them , I think it was Beethoven, continued to write and create music long after he became deaf. So the piano is analogy in my opinion is a very good one.

Science is giving real consideration to the possibility of a quantum mind hovering, in the vicinity of of the brain downloading and uploading into the physical brain constantly

Quantum nonlocality and interconnectivity could account for much of so called psychic phenomenon or even a definition of what consciousness really means

Are we the same entity we were as a child?, all the atoms of our body have been reprocessed all cells except brain neurons have died and been replaced

The consciousness I now express as an adult is completely different that that of when I was a young boy or child

1 Reply

@Alan McDougall,

Thanks for you posts there, folks. This always happens, as far as I have experienced, when discussing this subject of consciousness on internet forums--we get SO information set out on the table, that it becomes extremely tedious to organize it into catagorical distinctions, then draw up an orderly arrangement.

Regarding music (of the human type here) and numbers, we must ask ourselves if we have recall of having known of such before our brains formed in the embryos that became us. I'm very certain that we'd all have to honestly answer in the negative.

Therefore, it is quite reasonable to accept the understanding that before the 'brain expansion era,' say way before H. erectus had arrived on the scene, there would have been no specifically distinct knowledge of music nor numbers--probably much like our everyday macaque.

Please do keep in mind, and take note of my care in pointing out that I am keeping things in a range of practicality. Thus when I talk of consciousness I am talking about something that we can all relate too on a day to day basis. I'm talking about something that we are fully aware of in our daily working life; something that the quality of which can effect our survival.

Along this line of reasoning, to say that due to the fact that--as far as can be ascertained--our big brains have acheived a level of complexity (which even our big brains have had a whole lot of trouble seeing) called 'consciousness,' this 'consciousness' has always been a part of nature is extremely lacking in evidence (to give it some cushion). It's a similar argument used for the existence of some god--we can think it therefore it must be an external (not just in our brains) reality.

jeeprs wrote:

looking for the origin of consciousness in the brain is like looking for the news inside the television set (while also acknowledging that you can’t watch the news without the TV).

This statement evidences a lack of information, it seems. It is a fact (again, on the practical level here) that consciousness comes from brain. (and again, please do notice the difference between the wording, 'the brain,' and, 'brain') This is true because consciousness comes after (and above, if you will) conscious, and conscious is due to ganglion activity--it's a simple, everyday fact.

Now, I'm gonna have to touch on some other points in another post--there are so many--and try to see if I can help with some of the organizing of it. Thanks for the link. I am familiar with some of the names, and the proposition. Again, I also know that what is going on the field has put those behind it now--but somethings are hard to change (look at how long it took the very clear account of plasticity to get full credit, or the reproduction of certain brain cells.

I will include some points towards what you have posted, Alan (if I may), please bear with me, as I am fairly busy.

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@loudthoughts,

Then for goodness sake read what I have posted and respond or am I invisible or off topic?

1 Reply

@KaseiJin,

KaseiJin wrote:

Some nice reading in the above posts, along with thought provoking points. I would yet again like to emphasize that in the averaged aggregate of all that can be shown to be substantial enough to be secure, in the neurosciences, we will find that conscious is very much nothing more than brain (again, a non-countable, collective noun) and that consciousness is a certain range which is reached in 'mega-complexity' above a certain range of normal everyday ganglion life processes.

While it is common enough (and maybe especially in the humanities) to see thought, ideas, and mind as being a non-material (thus maybe 'non-object') something else, we can, when working in the pragmatic range of things, see that thought, ideas, and mind are physical properties/states/objects.

The increment of count and thickness of spines on the axon are the result of learning. They are real, they are objects, and without any doubt whatsoever (staying in the practical range, here) physical. These, along with your everyday synaptic sea (to quote LeDoux)①, make up the conscious state which when in activity, beyond that 'point' (see above), is consciousness, AND, is what it is like to be.

For that reason, I aruge that it is not so difficult to express what consciousness is like--most all of us pretty much know that for ourselves, and now we can learn that for brain in general. The 'what it is like' to have any awake and alert memory of having seen that proverbial red, is exactly the 'what it is' of having the responsible cells being there, and being alive--again, on the practical level.

① This is from his CD. (Yes, some neuroscientists do music too)

Please bear with me as I try to clumsily state what might be difficult to comprehend. Is it possible for the brain to be a receiver of sorts. I know it has the capacity of recording sensory input and memory storage. In trying to understand mood that I think comes from the interaction of the physical world and how the brain uses stored information, what is there that could serve as a mediator to determine what would be a "good mood" and a "bad mood"? There has to be something in this interplay that would serve as a sounding board or a judge as it were. Perhaps I am trying to define conscience, I don't know. It there a physical mechanism in the brain the knows what information is good as perceived by the sense's and that which is bad, or an inexplicable external mechanism capable of interacting with the brain as the brain would be a receiver of sorts. An external, universal arbitor, if you will, that is capable of distinguishing what is universally good and that which universally bad,excluding something such as physical pain. For instance knowledge. Not completely knowing how the brain assimilates all that the senses have experienced, is brain, in and of itself , capable of distinguishing what is good knowledge and what is bad knowledge. I am of the feeling all that we have "ever" experience perceived by the senses is in there whether we remember it or not. I hope my inquiry is not to confusing, but I would like your thoughts.:perplexed:
Thanks,
William

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@loudthoughts,

Quote:

To me thought is an immaterial thing or a chemical message imprinted in the brain

Well if it is chemical, it is not immaterial, is it? I believe thought, the act of thinking, is the activity of neurons and has a material basis. To that extent I think the materialist analysis is completely correct. HOWEVER, what is it that is aware of thought? In what medium, or to which being, does a thought occur? If you practise meditation, in the Eastern sense, you become aware of consciousness beyond thought. That is something else. It is well documented in Eastern philosophy, but has to be practised to be understood.

Quote:

Quantum nonlocality and interconnectivity could account for much of so called psychic phenomenon

I agree with that. I am certain - I know - that psychic phenomena occur. They cannot be accomodated by the materialist model of consciousness. Nor can they be made subject to laboratory verification. But I know they happen.

---------- Post added at 09:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:04 AM ----------

Quote:

There has to be something in this interplay that would serve as a sounding board or a judge as it were

Good point. Yes, I think it is close to the Christian idea of the faculty of conscience. Of course, most of our 'scientific' commentators might be therefore inclined to dismiss it as 'obsolete' Smile

. But I think you are touching on something fundamental to the whole debate - the nature of the Subject, s/he to whom all of this occurs? Who might that be? I am not sure of the answer but I refuse to accept 'this or that object or state'.

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