Navigator said:
The evidence suggests to me that consciousness is a means for those systems to coordinate and share information over an extended time, to model scenarios for forward planning with a simplified, integrated, self-model, which also provides a social interface, and a reflective self-monitoring facility. In other words, consciousness is a model 'front end' for those systems, a summary avatar representing 'self' - entirely based and dependent on those background systems which constitute the real 'us', but imbued with a powerful (and necessary) sense of agency, and appropriately distorted to suit the context.
Can you state that in a more 'down to earth' everyday language for us simpletons?
Consciousness (i.e. that which can report being aware of events) is part of a collection of cognitive facilities, including a 'scratchpad' means of hooking together the output & inputs of non-conscious processes into extended sequences of computation, i.e. deliberative thinking. Using abbreviated internal models of self and others, we can run what-if scenarios to plan our activities. I'm suggesting it is this abbreviated model of self that is the basis for our conscious self-awareness and our social face (i.e. it is not an accurate or detailed representation of the whole, but a simplified summary of how we like to see ourselves).
What I am groking here is that you believe that the influence of the overseeing background consciousness (OBC) dictates to a large degree how we EPs act out?
No, I don't think your OBC and EP are valid constructs, 'groked' or otherwise. I'm saying that the vast bulk of the behaviours characteristic of you are not conscious, they are the activities of a number of complex semi-autonomous systems; the consciousness self has evolved as a way for these systems to be represented both in the internal planning of future actions and socially.
... you seem to be speaking of these attributes as non conscious in themselves - just sets of random events which come through into and shape the EP.
They are not random at all, they are the results of multiple parallel unconscious processes; maintaining & updating knowledge, executing skills, searching, pattern matching, mapping, comparing, finding analogies, recognising metaphors, finding causal connections, generating answers, spotting incongruities, etc., all filtered for context & relevance and presented for conscious access.
Hard to say really how you are understanding these processes. It appears you may be saying that the processes are not conscious until they express through the EP.
Some of the outputs of these non-conscious processes become consciously accessible, i.e. we may become consciously aware of them.
Let me ask then. I don't disagree that 'the real self' is very much as you so poetically describe here. But I am unsure as to whether you understand it as being conscious in its own right. A self aware thing.
The bulk of what the brain does (the multiple parallel 'background' processes) is not conscious, there appears to be no reportable awareness of that activity. Our conscious awareness is the way we represent ourselves as an entity with a sense of self, sense of agency, etc.; but that representative is an somewhat of an abstraction.
I like the analogy of a large company, where all the departments get on with the business, and department heads flag up important issues to the board for consideration. The boardroom is where information enters conscious access for the company; the CEO can act of it and coordinate with the departments to make his long term plans, and the company representative & marketing manager sit in on meetings to keep abreast of developments.
Our conscious self is like a combination of the company representative & marketing manager speaking on behalf of the company, but with limited information. If the company does something they are unaware of, they'll get the publicity team to write a plausible story to explain it.
