Consciousness, thoughts anyone?

Hi all, I put this thread here because I couldn't really tie it to the debate between creationists and evolutionists, though it does share some existential links.I am a psychology student, and in my studies I have broached the question of consciousness, with little amount of insight from my texts. It baffles me, and it seems that the only way to describe it from a physical standpoint is to reduce it to being causally closed, meaning it can not affect behaviour, or to simply claim that it is an illusion. The only area I have learned anything about consciousness is the neurobiology, or how the different parts of the brain may work together to produce it, from THIS link, which belongs to a collection of papers on the topic of consciousness HEREAlthough there are many other articles out there and I have only just started to research this topic, I would be interested to start a conversation on consciousness, sparking peoples thoughts on the topic, their assertions, gut feelings, what they have learned that may shed light on HOW consciousness occurs, WHAT consciousness is, and WHY it is required.I guess those are the three questions I have to start about consciousness:1. How is consciousness produced by the various parts of the brain.
2. What consciousness is, its nature, how it can be defined.
3. Why is consciousness required by our brain, when similar outcomes could be achieved (apparently) through a non conscious process.If anyone can at least partially, if not wholly answer any one of these questions, I, and the whole of the scientific community is concerned with the mind and brain, would be very interested to read your thoughts.Thanks all, and enjoy.Edited by Dimebag, : No reason given.Edited by Dimebag, : No reason given.

Hi Dimebag, and welcomeI'm not sure I can attempt to answer your questions. However, there's a book on the subject of consciousness that I started a while ago that I was distracted from and want to get back to. It is The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio.Are you familiar with that book? I thought it gave a very insightful scientific analysis of consciousness. It was very highly rated in the reviews. It was written about 10 years ago and I wondered how up-to-date the ideas were. It goes a long way towards answering your question number 1.I'm intrigued by your question of whether consciousness might be an illusion. What would be the difference between a consciousness that was "real" as opposed to one that was an "illusion"?Sorry to throw questions back at you. It's a fascinating subject. I think if there's one thing our minds have evolved least successfully to understand it is...our minds.

Hi Dimebag,First of all, love the name. This particular question is what baffles all of neuroscience at the moment. There are theories, many of them good, most of them making an attempt to quantify consciousness.One of the theories I have currently been reading on is Orch OR developed by theoretical physicist Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff.The basic jist of their theory, well, let me start by saying that the jist of most other theories are that consciousness emerges from the brain as a series of computational connections (synapses) that allow communication between brain cells.What makes the Penrose/Hameroff theory exclusive is that they believe the brain works with both computational funtions, but more importantly, at the most fundamental level, with non-computational functions - like in quantum mechanics.

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Penrose went on to consider what it was in the human brain that might not be driven by algorithms. The physical law is described by algorithms, so it was not easy for Penrose to come up with physical properties or processes that are not described by them. He was forced to look to quantum theory for a plausible candidate.

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They suggest that this non-computational processing takes place in microtubules found in cells.To summerize:

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The Orch OR theory combines Penrose's hypothesis with respect to the Gdel theorem with Hameroff's hypothesis with respect to microtubules. Together, Penrose and Hameroff have proposed that when condensates in the brain undergo an objective reduction of their wave function, that collapse connects to non-computational decision taking/experience embedded in the geometry of fundamental spacetime.

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The theory further proposes that the microtubules both influence and are influenced by the conventional activity at the synapses between neurons. The Orch in Orch OR stands for orchestrated to give the full name of the theory Orchestrated Objective Reduction. Orchestration refers to the hypothetical process by which connective proteins, known as microtubule associated proteins (MAPs) influence or orchestrate the quantum processing of the microtubules.

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But you can read more about it in the link I provided. I would hesitate to simply refer to it as "awareness" of ones self and ones enviroment. In my opinion, there are deeper levels of consciousness that require no environment (REM sleep, hallucinations, etc.) that are specific, assumingly, to humans.Here again there are theories. One of my favorites is by Max Velmans called Reflexive Monism.

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In its evolution from some primal undifferentiated state, the universe differentiates into distinguishable physical entities, at least some of which have the potential for conscious experience, such as human beings. While remaining embedded within and dependent on the surrounding universe and composed of the same fundamental stuff, each human, equipped with perceptual and cognitive systems has an individual perspective on, or view of, both the rest of the universe and him or her self. In this sense, each human participates in a process whereby the universe differentiates into parts and becomes conscious in manifold ways of itself, making the entire process reflexive.

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I like this theory because it's simple. It states that the universe is consciousness at its most fundamental level, and has the ability to differentiate into parts that can have conscious experiences, like human beings.Our individual percetion of the universe is basically consciousness, as a physical entity, reflecting back on itself. I have never heard that consciousness was required by anything. It just so happens that a physcial entity equipped with perceptual and cognitive systems experiences consciousness. I hope this helped some. I'm interested in getting your answers to the same questions you asked.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Well - naturally it would take a book to cover this in the kind of detail that the topic demands. I think that by the time we've finished defining it, the other two questions you ask will be more readily apparent.The best description I can offer at the moment is that consciousness is the mental conceptualization of the self. This probably means most things with a brain are somewhat conscious. Our consciousness is given another layer of abstraction courtesy of language and an additional hardware acceleration courtesy of our PFC. In evolution, we talk quite a bit about 'spandrels'. These are structures which don't have a function themselves, but seem to be universal. That's not a good definition. The colour of bones is (as far as I am aware) universally white. This isn't because bones being white is required, its just that the material they are made of is white...but if they were black they'd function just the same. In fact, I've never seen any of my own bones so maybe....So consciousness may be a side effect of having the prefrontal cortex and language centres etc that we do.

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A spandrel (less often spandril or splaundrel) is the space between two arches or between an arch and a rectangular enclosure.

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As per wiki. If you build a normal set of stairs, you create a gap under the stairs. You can put that gap to good use, but it would be silly to consider what use the spandrel serves in helping you get upstairs. Consciousness might be like that, so if it turns out to be entirely useless at helping us have grand children - then we shouldn't necessarily despair (scratching heads is still permitted). Again a difficult question. I see this as like asking how a symphony is formed by the various parts of the orchestra. Each part of the brain is trying to make sure whatever it specialises in is given the correct attention. At the beginning of this process it's just a noise, but each part learns how to influence the body (ie., the conductor) in such a way as to influence the other parts of the brains in a fashion that is to the advantage of the brain part.The idea being that the parts eventually come together in unison, all working towards a largely agreed upon set of goals and purpose. That collection of goals and purposes is constructed in a serial narrative in the context of memory and prediction, and that narrative is consciousness.So I'm kind of on Dennet's side of the argument, but I'm rather rusty on the topic.Welcome to EvC dimebag...are you a Pantera fan?

Would you agree however that what we call "consciousness" would not and could not be acheived without a sensory system?My point is only that its not so much "something with a brain" that can experience consciousness. It has more to do with having a sensory system, and, a central nervous system.Would you agree? My only issue with Dennett is that, well, he simply does away with the problem of subjectivity, making the hard problem of consciousness go away. He claims that the idea of qualia and related phenomenal notions of the mind are not coherent concepts.If it was only parts coming together in unison, then it gives rise to the possibility of the philosophical zombie. Even though Dennett disagrees with the zombie scenario.Many of his critics, like David Chalmers, argue that "Dennett's argument misses the point of the inquiry by merely re-defining consciousness as an external property and ignoring the subjective aspect completely."Dennett however, responds that "the aforementioned "subjective aspect" as commonly used is non-existent and unscientific, and that his "re-definition" is the only coherent description of consciousness."A counter argument to this position is put forth by philosopher, John Searle who says:

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...on Dennett's view, there is no consciousness in addition to the computational features, because that is all that consciousness amounts to for him: meme effects of a von Neumann(esque) virtual machine implemented in a parallel architecture and therefore implies that conscious states are illusory, but Searle points out: "where consciousness is concerned, the existence of the appearance is the reality."

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So I wonder if you also take the position that subjective experiences and qualia are not coherent concepts because it presupposes objectivity?Or do you agree with Searle's position that, as he said, "the existence of the appearance is the reality"...? That was my second thought. - OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

That's an interesting question. My intuition doesn't agree, but I am really not qualified to give authoratative answers at all.If we knew how general anaesthetics work, that might help. Do they make you lose consciousness because of the sensory shutdown?Aren't there medical conditions that leave people as 'floating consciousnesses', with nothing coming in from the outside world?I guess that would require a sense of passing time - which might be argued to be a sense. He doesn't do away with subjectivity. His entire point about qualia is that they are just a series of 'seems to me' discriminations about the environment. Dennett says that technically he thinks we are all zombies If memory serves when he talks in details about them he suggests that zombies are no different than us in his theory and that the problem with the concept is that it assumes there is a difference to conclude there must be a difference! Everyone's critics argue that their opponents are in error Chalmer's critics, like Dennett, argue that Chalmers ends up with the Cartesian theatre (I'm not sure if that is Dennett's argument, though I wouldn't be surprised if that's where it terminates). I don't reject that subjective experience exists, though I do agree that qualia is ultimately incoherent as a concept. I have not seen Dennett suggest that 'subjective experience' is not a coherent concept. Dennett just says that what a person reports as being their experience may not necessarily reflect the actual experience they are reporting.So Dennett (rightly, I think) suggests that subjective reports are not the only evidence we should be using to study consciousness, but if we treat subjective reports to the methodology of heterophenomonology and not just relying on our own subjective judgements (Descartes self-examination method) on what consciousness is. Actually that was my second thought - I only know what a dimebag is because of Pantera. The term, for obvious reasons, is not common in the UK

Interesting topic!First of all, I think it would be a bit more logical to start with question 2. After all, you need a definition first of what it is you want to discuss.Consciousness is often described as being an emergent property of the activity of the brain, much like motion is the emergent property of the workings of an automobile. You can find bits of technology inside a car - like gears and pistons - but you can't find bits of motion anywhere inside it. Likewise, you can dissect a brain to find neurons and other biological structures inside it, but you won't find bits of consciousness there. In short, consciousness is not a thing, it's a process.How consciousness is produced in the brain is still for the large part uncharted territory, although science is making inroads at promising speed. My own thoughts on the subject are based on the idea that even very basic living creatures need internal models of their environment and other creatures in it, in order to interact with them. The more sophisticated the models become, the more intricate the possibilities of interaction become. At a certain level of sophistication, a creature may not only have models of other creatures in its surroundings, but also of itself. The creature has to monitor all its models in order to keep an overall assessment of its situation in the world up to date. As it does so, it also monitors itself, and might even monitor itself monitoring itself, perhaps going several levels deep in this respect. I think this is where a subjective experience of self emerges.As for the question why consciousness is required by the brain, I doubt whether that's actually true. Admittedly, it can be argued that being conscious might confer an evolutionary advantage to a creature, but many animals can hardly be called conscious, and even in humans experiments by Benjamin Libet have shown that many processes in our brain take place without our consciousness being the instigator, even though we are convinced it is.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

Thanks Chimpanzee,No I'm not familiar with that book, but I will try to track it down now that you mentioned it.What I meant by consciousness being an illusion or being real pertains mainly to the experience itself, and I guess also to qualia, and the concept of consciousness being a stand alone phenomenon within the universe.Are our conscious experiences mere virtual reflections of the underlying neural patterns which they represent, or are they a real and quantifiable (i hesitate to use the word) substance? I guess what I would compare it to would be diffraction patterns in light, the patterns themselves are not physical entities in themselves, but are results of the interaction of light waves. Is it possible that consciousness is similar, or is it a concrete phenomenon which may be located, measured, and studied.

Hi onifre,Thanks for the reply, oh and for yours and Modulous' information, yes I am a huge Pantera fan, along with alot of metal and rock.The Orch OR quantum mechanichal theory you describe sounds interesting and I will have to give it a good read. I am also inclined to reach for a quantum mechanical theory, because with our understanding of the universe and physics, there doesn't seem to be many other places for consciousness to be hiding, or for its world to be assembled. We have not detected it (so far) on any other scale, nor have we found any particle or field which may be responsible for its effects, in the catalogue of fundamental particles and fields.I do find it interesting that consciousness can be manipulated, and lately I have been starting to think of it like the LHC (yes the large hadron collider, i know it sounds a bit whacky).I imagine conscious experience to be like the detectors of the LHC, and when a specific collision, or discharge, or whatever occurs... something is shot out, somewhere, and somehow it is detected on some kind of quantum detector screen. This minute scintillation of activity is then what makes up our conscious experience, and when all those little scintillations are somehow woven together they produce a recognizable experience.I do think that the senses play a LARGE part in how we consciously experience anything. Take vision. Our visual experience relies on our visual cortex to pick apart the raw pieces from the optic nerve and inlay information about them, such as movement, shape, colour, etc. To think that the conscious experience of vision does not rely on the mechanisms which support it would be ludicris. The experience could never exist without the visual cortex. So I think every different conscious experience we have, sight, hearing, smelling, touch, taste, movement, balance, rely wholly on the mechanisms that support them, and without those mechanisms, they simply could not exist.Sure, people who have lost their eyesight may still beable to regain it through amazing feats of technology, but people whose visual cortex has been severely damaged will most likely never have another visual experience. I would be hesitant to say that consciousness serves no purpose at all. Take for example awareness. When we become aware of something, and it becomes conscious to us, a wider realm of possibilities as far as action, thought, decisions, are opened up to that event, compared to if it had remained unconscious.The problem with this is then people say, how can consciousness have any causal affect, because if that conscious experience is completely non physical, how can something non physical affect something physical?The only way I can see around it is this. When an event becomes conscious, it is displayed on this quantum consciousness "screen", and can be broadcast to a wider selection of unconscious processors, which may attack the problem from different angles. That way, the conscious experience itself is not causing any action, but merely allowing access of that event to a wider unconscious network.There may be a flaw in my thinking there, but it only just occurred to me so I haven't had time to think it through. And again, what I say here is highly speculative, so take it with a grain of salt. Well, I've made a start, though its very rough one. As far as question 2, what is consciousness and how to define it, I don't have a complete answer, and am still forming my opinion as I read up about it.My thoughts on consciousness:(Probably describes its function rather than its nature. This also pertains mainly to consciousness as a whole, rather than only conscious experience)
I think consciousness acts as a medium through which messages, experiences, thoughts, etc. may be sent globally to entire systems of non conscious networks, without which, such messages would either be dissipated, or not be fully realized by the entire system.Basically, it allows more flexible, adaptable, and ingenious responses than would be possible without a system with such an ability.I think this is why it may have evolved, and as such, I think most creatures with senses that are developed enough would posses consciousness.I think our conscious experience is wholly separate from the brain, as far as it has no specific location within space that we can determine, though this may change with research. But, everything about it pertains to the brain, and to the world that surrounds the brain, so the experience and the existence seems anchored in space, in the brain.By the way, I hope that doesn't make me a dualist. I think that consciousness is not some unquantifiable substance that exists in a spirit realm, but that it is beyond the reach of our electron microscope to observe or detect, and that with advances in science we may some day actually pin it down.If we could get to a stage in neuroscience, when we can say, this is what causes something to be conscious, it think I would be mostly satisfied with that. To actually describe it in the realm that it exists on would be a bonus.

This is true, I think consciousness can exist without the senses, but I think the senses are what tethers it in reality, and stops it from floating off into nothingness. As sensory depravation shows us, without some kind of external stimulus, the mind goes nuts for lack of a better word.I don't think any kind of creature could ever develop consciousness through evolution without discrete senses. How would consciousness serve a creature if it had nothing to be conscious of? The senses are what keeps the rest of the mind on track, with a goal or target in mind; to have no senses is to have no goal, no target, and no reason to exist. I don't think the senses are required for consciousness to exist, but for consciousness to be useful to the system, yes I think the senses are required. I don't think the philosophical zombie is possible, atleast not using the exact same architecture used in the brain. I think consciousness and "qualia" are required to achieve brain wide broadcasting of information. I do think, however, that it may be possible to create a philosophical zombie, but that its brain circuitry would require a higher degree of complexity to achieve the same interconnection as is possible in the brain. Basically, I think consciousness is something evolution adopted because it could achieve things easier with it than without it. And it couldn't achieve the same complexity through non-conscious processes without a major fluke of engineering occurring in nature. If I'm not mistaken, nature usually takes the easier option, the path of least resistance.

Hi Parasomnium,The reason why I didn't start off with a definition of consciousness is because I wanted the discussion to get started. From most discussions I have seen that debate the definition of consciousness, they end up in an endless circular argument.I think most people are fairly clear on what consciousness is here, atleast we all know the phenomenon we are discussing is. We aren't talking about being awake as opposed to being asleep. We are talking about the very phenomenon which we all experience anything through. I do however realize that there are many facets to consciousness, and that sometimes it may be beneficial to specify a single aspect, but I also thought this would make the topic too narrow to allow free flowing ideas. Sorry for ranting, this is just my reasoning, but you make a good point.It seems that we all know what it is we are discussing, but when it comes time to actually writing a definition they are all very different. I think this problem stems from the multifaceted nature of consciousness. If it is required later, maybe we should be very clear about which aspect of consciousness we are referring to. I think this is the way forward in research of consciousness, at least for the time being. If you can get something concrete down on paper about consciousness that is verifiable then you can build upon it and a general consensus can be reached.That doesn't mean we shouldn't theorise, just that we should all recognize that that is what we are doing. I think once we know more down the track about how consciousness occurs, all these different theories will start becoming more relevant and we may be left with only a few contenders. I can only hope that this happens in our lifetimes.

Just had a read of the ORC OR theory on wikipedia.They mention oppositions to the theory, about processing time and how the amount of time required for processing is too short to be accounted for by the collapse of the wave function. What I don't understand is why processing is required on a quantum level at all. Processing already occurs on the level of individual neurons, and networks of neurons.Are they saying that in order to produce conscious experience some form of processing which is beyond normal mathematical processing is required? Or are they trying to open up the realm of consciousness to causation, effectively allowing consciousness to have causal effects on the rest of the brain states? Or are they saying that through quantum entanglement the brain can effectively become a quantum computer, allowing processing of multiple factors at once?I like the idea of the concept but it seems a little TOO complicated to be true, and it seems like they are dismissing the part that neurons play in processing.Can anyone shed some light and tell me what I am missing?

We have no real idea. How can you define something when we don't what it is? Or definition would be as useful as an ancient Greek philosopher defining a Quark. I think it's astonishingly unlikely that your premise is correct; I do not believe the effects of consciousness can be effectively implemented by biological systems without consciousness. It's far too apparently complicated too simply be a non-adaptive side effect.

Oh, I can't resist it. I'm going to post my poem about Daniel Dennett. Down With Daniel Dennett!To quantify or qualify
quintessence (quasi-physical)
or quibble of such quiddities
is quirkish, quaint and quizzical.
You cannot quine a qualium
who queries this quodlibet,
unquestioned by the quorums
and the queues of the quickwitted,
quoth I, is queer and quarrelsome
so quell such talk and quit it!So down with Daniel Dennett!
Damn his devilish designs!
There’s no question that a qualium
is not a thing one quines.You may quote him in quadruple
from his quartos (without equal):
how quales may be quined must be
sequestered in the sequel.
So quote me quite unqualified:
those quacks who quine their qualia,
like that dummy Daniel Dennett,
are all damned and doomed to failure.
In despite of Daniel Dennett,
I’ll be darned if I can see
any way to quine a qualium,
qua quale. QED.Down with Dr. Daniel Dennett!
Damn his dark deceitful mind!
The question’s quite quotidian,
and quales can’t be quined.

Now we're really making progress, consciousness aside. As for "consciousness" I am inclined to agree with Modulous that it could not be summarized with any kind of brevity. It would be likely take a book to fully detail the analysis.But if I had briefly summarize what it is, I would say "awareness," and as you stated that would deal with the senses.

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"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston