Consciousness: What is 'Awareness?'

[Hokulele]

Yes, this is quite revealing.

For Keller, touching her chest and speaking of love didn't spark anything, because our association of hearts and love actually has nothing to do with the actual biology.

But when she associated "think" with the top of the head, Keller knew what she was talking about, because she had this sensation that we all do, of our awareness being in our heads.

According to the article linked by yy2bgggs earlier, some people have a problem with this sensation being located completely outside their body (OOBE's). How would that fit in with your claim of the "self" as having a fixed location?

 

[Mercutio]

Well that's the point, now, isn't it?

That it is more consistent with imagination than sensation? I suppose so.

Yes, we've studied the brain for some time, but we still don't know how this sensation is generated. But that's only because it so damn difficult to study the brain. And it is not the same sensation as, say, feeling pain in your hand. It is very different.

Very different indeed. And I think you do a disservice to brain researchers. I can't imagine a bigger prize, and yet...

There's a reason why we refer to both our stomachs and feet as "down", rather than the stomach as "up" and the feet as "down", which we would if this sensation were located in our hips, which it isn't.

There's a reason we call it sunrise and sunset, too.

And as I've said, I flatly don't believe that you don't have this same sort of experience.

Oh, I remember. Someone who claims one more sensation than you, you termed a "nutjob". Someone who claims one fewer, you call a liar. I wish I had your confidence. Or faith, or whatever.

 

[PixyMisa]

I used to date a woman that claimed she saw auras.

I see auras.

They're shimmering and silvery and take about half an hour to cross my field of vision, always from right to left.

 

[Mercutio]

I see auras.

They're shimmering and silvery and take about half an hour to cross my field of vision, always from right to left.

How often are they followed by your head exploding? Mine used to predict that at about 40%. Enough to get me to take my meds.

There used to by a NYTimes blog on visual migraines (might still be; I don't feel like checking), with some remarkable art. From your description (and from the art on the blog), my visual auras are very different from yours. Still, extremely cool, if it weren't for the feeling of impending head explosion.

 

[AlBell]

Do we have a trend?

Two migraine sufferers; zero loci of awareness of awareness.

 

[Hokulele]

No location in my head, no migraines (thank FSM).

 

[PixyMisa]

How often are they followed by your head exploding? Mine used to predict that at about 40%. Enough to get me to take my meds.

Almost never, in fact. I get the auras, and some nausea and light sensitivity, but rarely any pain.

 

[PixyMisa]

There used to by a NYTimes blog on visual migraines (might still be; I don't feel like checking), with some remarkable art. From your description (and from the art on the blog), my visual auras are very different from yours. Still, extremely cool, if it weren't for the feeling of impending head explosion.

Yikes. A couple of those are so familiar (1, 9, and 10) that just looking at them almost induced a migraine.

A shimmering, black-and-silver zig-zag arc, yep.

 

[Mercutio]

Yikes. A couple of those are so familiar (1, 9, and 10) that just looking at them almost induced a migraine.

A shimmering, black-and-silver zig-zag arc, yep.

Those are the closest for me, too, but the zigzag arc is bright primary colors, in a "marching ants" kind of phi phenomenon. Usually starts as a point somewhere near the center of my visual field, then grows, amoeba-shaped, until it can take over the vast majority of the field, with a few bits of periphery left untouched. I have also had a very different experience, where it looked like I was viewing the world through a cracked stained-glass window.

The scariest part (besides the potential for upcoming pain) was once, following one of these, when I felt perfectly normal again, and tried to read a magazine... I knew I was looking at words, but I could not make out anything of what was written. Could have been hieroglyphics. And of course, I had no way of knowing if this would be temporary or permanent.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Does anyone have interest in continuing with a definition of awareness?

What are the bits that seem to comprise this composite word? I think there is quite a bit to be said about both perception and understanding since those two are hanging out there. Probably not much to say about intentionality. Attention is an interesting process that seems to include a direction of fit and some level of energy expenditure in that direction of fit. Not sure what else there is to attention, but maybe others wish to chime in?

Or not?

 

[Hokulele]

Does anyone have interest in continuing with a definition of awareness?

What are the bits that seem to comprise this composite word? I think there is quite a bit to be said about both perception and understanding since those two are hanging out there. Probably not much to say about intentionality. Attention is an interesting process that seems to include a direction of fit and some level of energy expenditure in that direction of fit. Not sure what else there is to attention, but maybe others wish to chime in?

Or not?

Sorry for the derail, and I am also sorry that I didn't read the previous pages before answering this.

So, to the OP, there has to be some level of continuity for it to be awareness. In other words, not only does attention come into play, but attention must be retained long enough to register with, um, whatever it is you are calling consciousness. I don't think this continuity is the same thing as memory, but I could be wrong.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Those are the closest for me, too, but the zigzag arc is bright primary colors, in a "marching ants" kind of phi phenomenon. Usually starts as a point somewhere near the center of my visual field, then grows, amoeba-shaped, until it can take over the vast majority of the field, with a few bits of periphery left untouched. I have also had a very different experience, where it looked like I was viewing the world through a cracked stained-glass window.

The scariest part (besides the potential for upcoming pain) was once, following one of these, when I felt perfectly normal again, and tried to read a magazine... I knew I was looking at words, but I could not make out anything of what was written. Could have been hieroglyphics. And of course, I had no way of knowing if this would be temporary or permanent.

I get those once every 6 months or so, but no migraines. The first one I had, I was in a class, and I drew what I saw on the greenboard. I recall that a physician had published his drawings of these over a century ago. Three students said they had those and they were followed by bad migraines.
Thisled to a great discussion of establishing the reliability of private events,

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Sorry for the derail, and I am also sorry that I didn't read the previous pages before answering this.

So, to the OP, there has to be some level of continuity for it to be awareness. In other words, not only does attention come into play, but attention must be retained long enough to register with, um, whatever it is you are calling consciousness. I don't think this continuity is the same thing as memory, but I could be wrong.

It would certainly fit with 'working memory' which is often considered, at least within neurology if not within neuropsychology, as integral to attention -- frontal lobe function. Very good point.

 

[Mercutio]

Does anyone have interest in continuing with a definition of awareness?

What are the bits that seem to comprise this composite word? I think there is quite a bit to be said about both perception and understanding since those two are hanging out there. Probably not much to say about intentionality. Attention is an interesting process that seems to include a direction of fit and some level of energy expenditure in that direction of fit. Not sure what else there is to attention, but maybe others wish to chime in?

Or not?

Bear with me a bit, for an analogy: The Near-Death-Experience literature is full of wildly disparate phenomena, from the classic "tunnel of light" to the "life flashing before my eyes" to nothingness to peace and calm, to who knows what. Every time a potential physical cause (say, anoxia) is trotted out to explain a phenomenon, the rest of the legion are brought to bear--"but anoxia cannot explain the flashing of life before one's eyes..." (which is perfectly true; it cannot).

One problem, of course, is that of level of analysis: "Near Death Experience" has many different definitions. One website that collects NDE testimonies has included people who narrowly missed a car accident--they are unharmed, but were "near death". It also includes people who were "clinically dead" while in surgery, and those whose hearts stopped while in transport to an emergency room. To the best of my knowledge, none of the cases involved verified flat EEG (to be fair, if my heart stopped, the last thing I would want is for someone to be hooking up electrodes to my scalp), and so the "nearness to death" is quite a wide and somewhat unknown range.

The demand for a (one, singular) physical cause for NDE perceptions is foolish; there need not be one singular cause for such a wide range of events. Our language groups these events together as "near death", and since it adds to the pile (and, not coincidentally, adds to the inexplicability of the phenomenon), some "researchers" have been loathe to ungroup them.

Same with any of our consciousness/ awareness/ arousal/ responsiveness/ intentionality/ whatever words. As has been amply demonstrated on this and other threads, there are many possible definitions of these terms, and there are those people who will eagerly conflate multiple definitions to try to support their case. A "common" definition here, just as with NDE's, is worthless, and yet a technical definition will not, cannot cover the range of uses we commonly see. Any given definition will be accepted by some, rejected by others.

Fortunately, there is not a problem with people accepting or rejecting definitions; that is part of what operationalization leaves us, and we deal with it. Two lines of research may use different definitions of any variable; what is important is that each explicitly state their definition. After that, if one group wants to look at awareness as the firing of a particular area of cortex, and another as the report of seeing a particular stimulus, and a third as a subjective state that no one else in the world can access, then so be it. The two scientists can have fun laughing at the philosopher.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Yes, agreed.

I'm not looking for consensus from all sides, only a definition that can be operationalized.

I expect, as stated earlier, that the only possibility is that what we call awareness is not a single entity but is, rather, a collection of different processes. My interest is in trying to piece out what processes are important to whatever definition we can arrive at. I'm fully open to the idea, and have preliminarily advanced the notion, that there is more than one kind of awareness (though it is necessarily dicey to define any sense of awareness as an unconscious process).

The regulars who argue against physical explanations of consciousness have already chimed in and said, almost as a group, 'nope, can't be done, you can't define awareness in terms of anything more fundamental.'

So, we're free to do whatever we can.

 

[Piggy]

Does anyone have interest in continuing with a definition of awareness?

What are the bits that seem to comprise this composite word? I think there is quite a bit to be said about both perception and understanding since those two are hanging out there. Probably not much to say about intentionality. Attention is an interesting process that seems to include a direction of fit and some level of energy expenditure in that direction of fit. Not sure what else there is to attention, but maybe others wish to chime in?

Or not?

Perception is much broader than consciousness. Clearly we perceive (and even understand, remember, and learn from) a lot of input we're never conscious of.

Understanding is problematic. I understand how to swim and ride a bike, but I can do them both without thinking about it. I also understand that 2+2=4, but it's not something I'm thinking about all the time.

Intentionality. I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. Can you fill that in a little bit?

Attention, though, is interesting. But I don't think there's a 100% correspondence to consciousness. Subliminal studies, for instance, demonstrate clearly that we're attending to (and processing) a whole lot more input than we're consciously aware of.

At the end of the day, consciousness is consciousness, and I don't know that it makes much sense to attempt to equate it with other functions of the brain.

It does seem an odd thing for the brain to do, especially since it uses up a good deal of resources. And why are we aware of our dreams? That's a real puzzler.

So far, the best tentative explanation I've run across is that consciousness is the most efficient way to make very high-level decisions involving simultaneous resources from across the brain. But that could turn out to be completely wrong.

What seems clear from the current research, though, is that consciousness is a downstream function, involving information that's already highly processed.

In other words, we don't decide to pay attention to anything. Instead, our brains "push" highly processed and chunked information into conscious awareness. Things move into and out of our conscious awareness because non-conscious functions of our brains determine that they should.

But here's the really bizarre bit....

In order for consciousness to be worth the trouble, in order for it to have any useful purpose at all, there must be something coming out the other end. It must somehow feed back into the system. Otherwise, it would be a total loss, and it's impossible to imagine how it could have evolved.

So this is the last hope of free will. And as odd as free will seems from a material perspective (which is my perspective) there does seem to be a good chance that there's something to it.

Because if conscious awareness didn't serve a function, didn't do something which non-conscious processing couldn't do, we wouldn't have it.

So this function of consciousness, which supports our sense of self and our feelings of autonomy, must be adding something that cannot be had (or, at least, is not had) any other way. It's doing something.

In the end, I don't think we'll end up understanding consciousness by analogy to other functions of the brain, but rather by understanding how it is physically done, and why it is done, and what it adds to the system.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Perception is much broader than consciousness. Clearly we perceive (and even understand, remember, and learn from) a lot of input we're never conscious of.

Yep, no question about it. Mentioned this briefly earlier in the thread.

Understanding is problematic. I understand how to swim and ride a bike, but I can do them both without thinking about it. I also understand that 2+2=4, but it's not something I'm thinking about all the time.

Yep, though most of these issues are discussed in terms of learning or memory. One of the issues is defining what understanding, or meaning, actually *is*, or means.

Intentionality. I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. Can you fill that in a little bit?

That all mental states are 'about' something -- there is a direction of fit between the individual and the object of concern, whether external or internal. So, we are not just 'aware', but we are aware of something. It seems to be a general feature of mental activity, whether conscious or unconscious.

Attention, though, is interesting. But I don't think there's a 100% correspondence to consciousness. Subliminal studies, for instance, demonstrate clearly that we're attending to (and processing) a whole lot more input than we're consciously aware of.

Yep.

At the end of the day, consciousness is consciousness, and I don't know that it makes much sense to attempt to equate it with other functions of the brain.

Why would that be the case? First, this is about 'awareness', not consciousness exactly. If we want to define consciousness as awareness, then they are coequal, but there seem to be several problems with that. As you have mentioned there are many automatic processes (or so they have been labelled by psychologists), or if you prefer -- unconscious processes. We process information at a subconscious level and this processing seems to include some degree or type of attention, intentionality, and perception. It is also possible that semantic processing (what can be labelled 'understanding') also occurs at a subconscious level.

That would be very interesting if we decided, for instance, that those are the components of what we mean by awareness; and they seem to be from my simplistic way of looking at the issue.

So, what then is consciousness?

It does seem an odd thing for the brain to do, especially since it uses up a good deal of resources. And why are we aware of our dreams? That's a real puzzler.

So far, the best tentative explanation I've run across is that consciousness is the most efficient way to make very high-level decisions involving simultaneous resources from across the brain. But that could turn out to be completely wrong.

Could be wrong, but I don't think it is. If consciousness is awareness of awareness it would seem to be able to perform such a task.

What seems clear from the current research, though, is that consciousness is a downstream function, involving information that's already highly processed.

In other words, we don't decide to pay attention to anything. Instead, our brains "push" highly processed and chunked information into conscious awareness. Things move into and out of our conscious awareness because non-conscious functions of our brains determine that they should.

But here's the really bizarre bit....

In order for consciousness to be worth the trouble, in order for it to have any useful purpose at all, there must be something coming out the other end. It must somehow feed back into the system. Otherwise, it would be a total loss, and it's impossible to imagine how it could have evolved.

Yes, precisely.

So this is the last hope of free will. And as odd as free will seems from a material perspective (which is my perspective) there does seem to be a good chance that there's something to it.

Because if conscious awareness didn't serve a function, didn't do something which non-conscious processing couldn't do, we wouldn't have it.

So this function of consciousness, which supports our sense of self and our feelings of autonomy, must be adding something that cannot be had (or, at least, is not had) any other way. It's doing something.

In the end, I don't think we'll end up understanding consciousness by analogy to other functions of the brain, but rather by understanding how it is physically done, and why it is done, and what it adds to the system.

OK. Yes to the free will issue, but what that means I don't think we'll decide here.

As to analogy to other brain functions, that is not really what I am after. I do not think this amounts to analogy, but to analysis. We cannot construct a physical system or understand the neuroscience without direction from psychology. First, we must understand how the system works before we can understand how to build it. To understand how it works we must arrive at some sort of preliminary definition that allows us to study it properly and provide decent controls.

I don't pretend that we can arrive at a final 'scientific' definition of awareness or consciousness from such an analysis, only that we can possibly arrive at some sort of better preliminary definition that can help to guide us.

 

[Piggy]

That all mental states are 'about' something -- there is a direction of fit between the individual and the object of concern, whether external or internal. So, we are not just 'aware', but we are aware of something. It seems to be a general feature of mental activity, whether conscious or unconscious.

I'm still not grokking you here, especially under the rubrik of the term "intentionality".

Can you phrase this in more biological terms?

 

[Piggy]

Why would that be the case? First, this is about 'awareness', not consciousness exactly. If we want to define consciousness as awareness, then they are coequal, but there seem to be several problems with that. As you have mentioned there are many automatic processes (or so they have been labelled by psychologists), or if you prefer -- unconscious processes. We process information at a subconscious level and this processing seems to include some degree or type of attention, intentionality, and perception. It is also possible that semantic processing (what can be labelled 'understanding') also occurs at a subconscious level.

That would be very interesting if we decided, for instance, that those are the components of what we mean by awareness; and they seem to be from my simplistic way of looking at the issue.

So, what then is consciousness?

Well, I don't really see much, if any, difference between the terms "awareness" and "consciousness".

If I'm conscious of it, I'm aware of it; if I'm aware of it, I'm conscious of it.

How can one be conscious but not aware, or aware but not conscious?

Unless you're equating awareness with perception.

In that case, I'm aware of anything that I perceive at any level and respond to, even if it's never fed into my consciousness.

Is that how you're using the term "awareness"?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I'm still not grokking you here, especially under the rubrik of the term "intentionality".

Can you phrase this in more biological terms?

Unfortunately, it is a philosophical term. I include it because the philosophers mention it at every passing when discussing consciousness. There really is nothing much to it. It seems just to be that mental states are always about something; they don't just exist as processes in and of themselves; so no general attention, but attention to something. No general fear, but fear of something (even if you don't know what you might fear).