Consciousness: What is 'Awareness?'

[yy2bggggs]

Ok, that's all fine, but what I am saying is that the common view of "filling in" is that there is a sort of 'covering over' of information.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "common view" and "a sort of covering over" specifically. I am under the impression that the common view of what happens around our blind spot is that it's filled in with surrounding information.

I am basically saying that in most cases, there is really nothing there at all -- there is simply no perception (not a perception of black or blank, but no perception in any way).

By "most cases", and especially since we're discussing the blind spot per se, I'm going to have to interpret it as meaning the specific case I'm talking about--a normal visioned human being having or not having a percept corresponding to a part of the visual field that this person does not actually have, since there are no light sensitive cells around that part of the eye.

And in this particular case, I'm unconvinced that there is simply a lack of perception.

You can call it filling in, but the experience of testing people with visual field deficits and with spatial deficits is not that there is a filling in of any sort of info but merely the radical absence of it. There are exceptions to this rule, however, because some people do report some sort of visual experience in the area of the field cut.

Those are different cases.

Yes, confabulation is a different ballgame -- but there we can point to something that is clearly filled in.

That's a different sense of the word "filled in".

We don't like that story, so we speak of things being filled in, but I am not convinced that such is the case.

Now this is an ad hominem argument. I'm not arguing my case because of an emotional commitment--well, except for a fascination with vision. I think I have a legitimate reason to be suspicious.

There are physical areas in our visual cortex corresponding to the blind spot. There's a filling in scenario that has to do with feedback circuits within the visual cortex. And there is the subjective element that the blind spot is experienced as a background color. And, there are those scenarios that you refer to where there simply isn't a perception, and they are distinct.

I think I have quite legitimate reasons for suspecting that those cells in our visual cortex corresponding to the blind spot aren't just sitting there being dead, and aren't just "going through the motions" without contributing to our experience. In this one limited scenario, I don't think this is a case of there simply being nothing perceived.

Now in order to convince me otherwise, that is what you would have to convince me of--and you're welcome to try; you'd have to convince me that these cells in the visual cortex corresponding to the blind spot aren't actually receiving feedback, as the other cells do; or, that for some reason, they are sitting there dead; or, that they don't contribute to our experiences. I would even welcome a subjective experiment to start, but I don't think your "not see a finger there"/"wouldn't be able to see the blind spot" argument flies is all.

 

[Maia]

Another anecdote!
Another neurological quirk of mine is...a few times I've had this thing happen, and I don't know if it's the result of epileptic activity or some non-epileptic "aura without migraine" thing, but I'll, for a few minutes "lose" a slice of vision. Like, imagine cutting an egg shaped hole in the middle of a photo and then pulling the sides of the hole together so there's no longer a hole. What was in the hole is just missing.

Not sure if that's related or not...

It's a visual migraine. More here. I've had those too.

And I still think there's more to be learned from pathology than any other way. More explanations on Wednesday. I will be working with Alzheimer's patients for the next two days.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Another anecdote! ... What was in the hole is just missing. ...
Not sure if that's related or not...

Absolutely it's related!

Are you just being kind? Because I read through your experiences like they are candy.

 

[AkuManiMani]

So, if awareness is the scope of one's conscious attention, is it possible for someone to be aware of something not attended to? As in, is it possible to speak of me being aware of the shirt on my back even though most of the time I do not direct attention to it? I ask because the issue has arisen in several guises already in this thread.

Think of the mind as being a dark room; consciousness would be analogous to turning on a flashlight in the room. The area of the room illuminated by the flashlight would be our awareness -- the things that are actually in the scope of our conscious regard. The brightest portions would be analogous to what our conscious attention is most focused on, with things we're less focused on being at the darker periphery. Areas that are accessible to the flashlight, but otherwise unilluminated, would represent the things you know and are accessible to conscious recollection. Dark portions unaccessible to the the flashlight represent the subconscious mind.


So, the if the shirt you're wearing is at the corner of your mind but not your main focus, then you could be said to be aware of it. If you're so engrossed in a task that none of your conscious attention touches upon anything else, then you're not aware of the shirt, even tho you mentally hold the knowledge of wearing it.

Meh... I guess the short answer is that awareness = active memory. Sorry for the ramble >_>

 

[kellyb]

Absolutely it's related!

Are you just being kind? Because I read through your experiences like they are candy.

Thanks!
I find this stuff endlessly fascinating.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I'm not sure what you mean by the "common view" and "a sort of covering over" specifically. I am under the impression that the common view of what happens around our blind spot is that it's filled in with surrounding information.

By "most cases", and especially since we're discussing the blind spot per se, I'm going to have to interpret it as meaning the specific case I'm talking about--a normal visioned human being having or not having a percept corresponding to a part of the visual field that this person does not actually have, since there are no light sensitive cells around that part of the eye.

And in this particular case, I'm unconvinced that there is simply a lack of perception.
Those are different cases.
That's a different sense of the word "filled in".

Now this is an ad hominem argument. I'm not arguing my case because of an emotional commitment--well, except for a fascination with vision. I think I have a legitimate reason to be suspicious.

There are physical areas in our visual cortex corresponding to the blind spot. There's a filling in scenario that has to do with feedback circuits within the visual cortex. And there is the subjective element that the blind spot is experienced as a background color. And, there are those scenarios that you refer to where there simply isn't a perception, and they are distinct.

I think I have quite legitimate reasons for suspecting that those cells in our visual cortex corresponding to the blind spot aren't just sitting there being dead, and aren't just "going through the motions" without contributing to our experience. In this one limited scenario, I don't think this is a case of there simply being nothing perceived.

Now in order to convince me otherwise, that is what you would have to convince me of--and you're welcome to try; you'd have to convince me that these cells in the visual cortex corresponding to the blind spot aren't actually receiving feedback, as the other cells do; or, that for some reason, they are sitting there dead; or, that they don't contribute to our experiences. I would even welcome a subjective experiment to start, but I don't think your "not see a finger there"/"wouldn't be able to see the blind spot" argument flies is all.

Wait,wait. First, please do not interpret anything in this conversation as an attack. I know there is no emotional content to it so it can seem that way, but I perceive it as a simple back and forth conversation about an interesting phenomenon. Trust me, I hold you in the highest regard. I hope you don't interpret anything here as an ad hominem attack because it certainly wasn't meant that way.

Second, I am not arguing specifically about the blind spot but about the issue of missing information in general. Where information is missing, it is often just missing. I don't want people to get the idea that the brain always just fills it in -- that's all. Reality is a bit more complicated than that.

When it comes to vision and the blind spot, I'm not clear what relay loops you are talking about corresponding to the blind spot. There are no neurons in the blind spot so they don't relay to the occipital cortex. There just isn't any information getting there. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. From what I recall there is a slight enlargement of some of the receptive fields in V1 corresponding to the area surrounding the blind spot that "covers in" the missing data from that area, but it's been years since I've looked at vision wiring so that may be me misremembering. I'll have to look at Kandel ans Schwartz to see how it is covered there since I don't keep any vision books around.

The bit about the story that we don't like -- I didn't mean you, I meant human beings in general, which includes me. When asked what do you see we generally try to give an answer, which is often the surrounding background. What is there to tell us, however, that such background is 'filled in' rather than that just being the response that people give?

What we see in other pathological cases in which cells are destroyed is the absence of information -- because the cells that receive information just aren't there. But with the blind spot there never was any information that arose from that area precisely. I think I understand what you mean, and there is a general property where cortical cells take over function when receptors are damaged so that the cortical area glosses over what is lost with those receptors.

I'm not aware that there is a visual cortical area that corresponds to the blind spot precisely, only that I seem to recall enlarged visual fields in some the surrounding neurons. I don't know how we could even investigate this except to look at cortical fields. The absence of perception is easily perceived as background, but it is still just absence of perception. The bottom line I was trying to get across, though, is that the absence of info is not perceived as black or as much of anything. It is simply an absence.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Think of the mind as being a dark room; consciousness would be analogous to turning on a flashlight in the room. The area of the room illuminated by the flashlight would be our awareness -- the things that are actually in the scope of our conscious regard. The brightest portions would be analogous to what our conscious attention is most focused on, with things we're less focused on being at the darker periphery. Areas that are accessible to the flashlight, but otherwise unilluminated, would represent the things you know and are accessible to conscious recollection. Dark portions unaccessible to the the flashlight represent the subconscious mind.


So, the if the shirt you're wearing is at the corner of your mind but not your main focus, then you could be said to be aware of it. If you're so engrossed in a task that none of your conscious attention touches upon anything else, then you're not aware of the shirt, even tho you mentally hold the knowledge of wearing it.

Meh... I guess the short answer is that awareness = active memory. Sorry for the ramble >_>

I don't think it's a ramble. I think it's one of the central problems in trying to come up with a workable definition of these terms. They're all fuzzy.

 

[Third Eye Open]

*Sees another consciousness thread that is already to 3 pages in barely 24 hrs*

NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo!!!

 

[AkuManiMani]

*Sees another consciousness thread that is already to 3 pages in barely 24 hrs*

NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo!!!

Soon they will overrun the entire interwebz! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[PixyMisa]

You've got to go there, hon.

Well, yes. But the point I'm making is that we know for certain that it is possible to go there, in the same way that we know we can go to any point on the surface of the Earth.

I'm not saying that all we need to is go online and book the tickets; I'm just saying that it can be done.

UCE is claiming that it can't; he's wrong, and all his wittering about Kant amounts not to a bean.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

What fear?

Then you have to read John Shelby Spong's latest book, and you'll see.

What does he say that relates to this? I know he's relatively sensible for a bishop, but not sure what he's said regarding consciousness.

 

[PixyMisa]

However, any attempt to make definitive philosophical pronouncements about awareness or consciousness based on a materialist argument just sounds ridiculous, considering how little is actually known at the present time relative to the certainty we'd need to have in order to make these statements. The only way to truly build the evidence base for these particular arguments is to start from known pathologies, because that's the only way to gather evidence using the empirical method. It just isn't possible to make sweeping statements about grand concepts when they're never, ever based on studies which involve a control group. Here's how the normal brains operate. Here's how brains operate with TBI's, with epilepsy, with ADHD, with PTSD, with Korsakoff's... this is not a difficult concept.

But this is always what Dennett et. al try to get away with, and I can't believe that nobody seems to have called them on this fundamental error yet. Well, yes, I can believe it, because Dennett debates people like de Souza and David Chalmers.

While I agree with you - Phineas Gage and Henry Molaison (HM) taught us more about the human mind than all the philosophers of history rolled together Katamari-style - I don't think you're being entirely fair to Dennett. Someone has to tackle the likes of de Souza and Chalmers, because people listen to them. Heaven alone knows why, but Chalmers is head of the Philosophy Department at the University of Woolloomooloo.* It's hard to debate the details of abnormal psychology with someone who is claiming that the mind outlives the body.

* Well, Australian National University. Near enough.

 

[blobru]

Soon they will overrun the entire interwebz! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Perhaps the goal of consciousness is to convert all matter into consciousness threads, eventually merging into a Universal Consciousness Thread. Of course, the momentum of the Universal Consciousness Thread (UCT) will create another universe, to discuss whether the UCT is conscious, whether it is conscious, and what consciousness is (and whether and how it is different from awareness). And so on. It is rumored that if consciousness, in whole or in part, ever discovers what it is, the multiverse will collapse to a single point of infinite density from which nothing can escape (also known as "a consciousness thread").

Perhaps not.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Wait,wait. First, please do not interpret anything in this conversation as an attack.

Ah, no... I'm not one to confuse insults or personal attacks with ad hominem arguments--that wasn't what I meant. Anyhow, I think you cleared this up regardless.

Second, I am not arguing specifically about the blind spot but about the issue of missing information in general.

That's fine. I don't think it's possible to say in general... it's probably better to judge on a case by case basis based on the evidence available.

When it comes to vision and the blind spot, I'm not clear what relay loops you are talking about corresponding to the blind spot.
...There are no neurons in the blind spot so they don't relay to the occipital cortex. There just isn't any information getting there.
...

Right. They aren't in our eye. They aren't in our optic nerve (I could be surprised). But they are in V1.

When asked what do you see we generally try to give an answer, which is often the surrounding background. What is there to tell us, however, that such background is 'filled in' rather than that just being the response that people give?

Here:
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/reprint/20/24/9310.pdf
(FYI I should keep my amateur research more organized... I can hardly find the papers I actually read to come to conclusions... I just grabbed this one from a google search of "V1 blind spot").

Essentially in V1 all of our perceptual field is mapped, including the area of our blind spot, surprisingly enough. For some reason. But it's there.

...and it's likely responsive to the surrounding.

This could just come to a difference between what I call "filling in" and what you call "filling in", but if this were the case, then it's still a matter of my confusion of what you mean the difference to be between filling in and simply not being there.

ETA: Or rather, there may be a difference in what we mean by perception?

 

[Apathia]

See, that's why I like you so much.

I also think you have a lot to offer this conversation.

But I come to a personal impasse on the the subject, or at least on having a technical, working definition that does justice to our common experience.
I just don't have a single, consistent state of consciousness to be labeled Awareness as opposed to Unawareness.

Perhaps there is a simple definition that could stand instead of a chart of different states. But it's so easy to flash about the razor and cut off an ear.
We see plenty of least common denominator definitions for consciousness, self-consciousness, awareness, self-awareness and all that go beyond simple to dumb. We are left with trivial commonality between contemplative humans and thermostats. So much complexity is glossed over.

And that complexity is so messy.
And shot full of holes, at least in my experience.

I think of those times when I thought I had a clear focus on a subject, only later to realize I had a blind spot.
My focus, attentiveness, and self-awareness vary all the time, and this thing I call my self and my awareness of it, this "I," hasn't got much consistency or real substance.

Are we aware when we are deluded?
(I can't speak for good skeptical folk here, but delusion is often over for dinner at my place.)

Maybe I'm deluded at the moment, but I doubt it's just a matter of programing the right algorithms so that when you hit the awareness switch, the system becomes aware, but when you turn it off the system doesn't even know it's singing "Daisy."

We may be able to set up the right circumstances, but awareness, as we subjectively experience it is more something we grow into.

I do think that eventually there will be a working definition in the field of Artificial Intelligence, and we will speak of machines and biosynthetic constructs as being "aware," and even "self-aware."
But that's a subject way beyond any practical knowledge I have.

As usual posters on this subject have sharp disagreements,
but I see most have pointed out unavoidable aspects of what it means to be aware. We will not likely get it all together, but many will become more aware of the nuances of the subject.

(long winded way of saying: I'm too confused to make a worthwhile contribution.)

 

[!Kaggen]

But I come to a personal impasse on the the subject, or at least on having a technical, working definition that does justice to our common experience.
I just don't have a single, consistent state of consciousness to be labeled Awareness as opposed to Unawareness.

Perhaps there is a simple definition that could stand instead of a chart of different states. But it's so easy to flash about the razor and cut off an ear.
We see plenty of least common denominator definitions for consciousness, self-consciousness, awareness, self-awareness and all that go beyond simple to dumb. We are left with trivial commonality between contemplative humans and thermostats. So much complexity is glossed over.

And that complexity is so messy.
And shot full of holes, at least in my experience.

I think of those times when I thought I had a clear focus on a subject, only later to realize I had a blind spot.
My focus, attentiveness, and self-awareness vary all the time, and this thing I call my self and my awareness of it, this "I," hasn't got much consistency or real substance.

Are we aware when we are deluded?
(I can't speak for good skeptical folk here, but delusion is often over for dinner at my place.)

Maybe I'm deluded at the moment, but I doubt it's just a matter of programing the right algorithms so that when you hit the awareness switch, the system becomes aware, but when you turn it off the system doesn't even know it's singing "Daisy."

We may be able to set up the right circumstances, but awareness, as we subjectively experience it is more something we grow into.

I do think that eventually there will be a working definition in the field of Artificial Intelligence, and we will speak of machines and biosynthetic constructs as being "aware," and even "self-aware."
But that's a subject way beyond any practical knowledge I have.

As usual posters on this subject have sharp disagreements,
but I see most have pointed out unavoidable aspects of what it means to be aware. We will not likely get it all together, but many will become more aware of the nuances of the subject.

(long winded way of saying: I'm too confused to make a worthwhile contribution.)

There is much wisdom in the smiling face of a clown.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

This could just come to a difference between what I call "filling in" and what you call "filling in", but if this were the case, then it's still a matter of my confusion of what you mean the difference to be between filling in and simply not being there.

ETA: Or rather, there may be a difference in what we mean by perception?

More a difference in what we label "filling in" I think. What I want people to avoid is the idea that what we do with perception is directly translate the world into a clear representation, and if there is missing information we just fill it in so that we end up with just as good a copy as the original world out there but with some fuzzy blob in it. Out perceptual system is much messier than that. While we have plenty of feature "detectors" (line detectors, etc.), we never seem to directly map the world onto a screen.

As you know we construct the world. When there are missing bits of information we don't so much "fill it in" as gloss over the missing bits -- more like "it isn't there and it doesn't matter", so that we can keep going on. The blind spot is a different issue than pathological situations because it has always been there. There never were neurons to project to V1 from that space, so there are not properly speaking neurons in V1 that are 'responsible for that space', so adaptation is easy . With pathological states, the same thing goes on -- there is simply nothing transmitted (if the damage is in nerve cell body or receptor in the retina or lateral geniculate or in the axons from the LGN to cortex) or, if the damage is in the cortex, then there is nothing received. But adaptation is not as easy. There is clearly some degree of cortical remodelling, but when the optic radiations are hit, you end up with a blind area. Weird things can happen with this as we get older, though.

We can adapt to some missing information, but for the most part none of it is filled in. Textbooks talk about filling stuff in all the time, but I think this is a mis-service since the reality of how we handle missing information is much more complex and is lost in the world of 'recreation of space' that our perceptual systems actually do.

That is what I meant by "common view" -- that many people seem to have this idea that we just fill in the missing bits so that the world looks hunky-dory. In reality, we generally construct abstractions at higher levels instead of faithfully recreating the world in detail where some details must be 'filled in'. That is why in psychology experiments an entirely different person can pop up from behind a counter when a "customer" is misdirected, and when the customer returns attention back to the person behind the counter most folks never realize that a switch as taken place.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

But I come to a personal impasse on the the subject, or at least on having a technical, working definition that does justice to our common experience.
I just don't have a single, consistent state of consciousness to be labeled Awareness as opposed to Unawareness.

Perhaps there is a simple definition that could stand instead of a chart of different states. But it's so easy to flash about the razor and cut off an ear.
We see plenty of least common denominator definitions for consciousness, self-consciousness, awareness, self-awareness and all that go beyond simple to dumb. We are left with trivial commonality between contemplative humans and thermostats. So much complexity is glossed over.

And that complexity is so messy.
And shot full of holes, at least in my experience.

..............

(long winded way of saying: I'm too confused to make a worthwhile contribution.)

I'll get to the rest tonight, but these caught my eye........I would say that you have already made a worthwhile contribution. One of the things I wanted to highlight is that processes like awareness, etc. are not single processes. The whole project of trying to arise at a single definition is fraught with landmines.

I agree with you. I can't find a definition. And that is one of the very big problems with these discussions.

The best we can do is piece out the various processes that do go on -- whatever their ontology -- and examine them.

If we abandon the idea that there is such a 'thing' as awareness, we've made a first step. There is certainly directed attention, intentionality, etc. Perhaps we should work on those processes for a while?

 

[Apathia]

I'll get to the rest tonight, but these caught my eye........I would say that you have already made a worthwhile contribution. One of the things I wanted to highlight is that processes like awareness, etc. are not single processes. The whole project of trying to arise at a single definition is fraught with landmines.

I agree with you. I can't find a definition. And that is one of the very big problems with these discussions.

The best we can do is piece out the various processes that do go on -- whatever their ontology -- and examine them.

If we abandon the idea that there is such a 'thing' as awareness, we've made a first step. There is certainly directed attention, intentionality, etc. Perhaps we should work on those processes for a while?

Yes.

Now this:

If we abandon the idea that there is such a 'thing' as awareness, we've made a first step.

I with you that "awareness" is not a thing in itself with it's own inherent existence. But I make a qualification for the sake of those who then resort to the all too convenient position that the word is meaningless because there is no such thing as a subjective experience of it. This is a kind of avoidance.
But examining the components and circumstances in which the experience of being aware, and being aware that one is aware, is a valid way to go to deconstruct and reconstruct what we mean by this word.
The better path is not getting hung up with awareness as a something or a nothing.

Any significant topic of discussion needs lots of qualifiers and nuanced definitions. What's more a word like "awareness" is going to have (and already does) different definitions in different fields of study. We are going to wind up with some carefully drawn out definitions in Neurology, Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, and Contemplation. And they're not necessarily going to mesh on all points.
This doesn't bother me. I'm already used to seeing a spectrum of meanings for the word "spectrum."

Point is carry on. It would be a mistake to dismiss a definition for "awareness"
because there's no such experience or because it's some transcendent thing of which we cannot speak.

Yes, it's like sledging through a swamp these messy words.
But I'm of the opinion that that is what is to be expected in respect to awareness and consciousness.
It's an animal you won't find in the desert.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I with you that "awareness" is not a thing in itself with it's own inherent existence. But I make a qualification for the sake of those who then resort to the all too convenient position that the word is meaningless because there is no such thing as a subjective experience of it. This is a kind of avoidance.
But examining the components and circumstances in which the experience of being aware, and being aware that one is aware, is a valid way to go to deconstruct and reconstruct what we mean by this word.
The better path is not getting hung up with awareness as a something or a nothing.

Right, I agree. That is why I want to try to pin down all the different components that seem to make up the family of meanings we attach to the word. It's obviously not the only way to attack the problem, just the one I chose to try.

 

[kellyb]

Would it be fair to say "the experience of consciousness is a synthesis of several processes within the brain"?