Consciousness: What is 'Awareness?'

[PixyMisa]

Did somebody fart?

Hmmm. Fresh air.

With friends like Pixymisa, science and rationalism do not need enemies. He does far more damage to the reputation of those things than any creationist could, because he really believes he is standing up for them. His posts, however, as any person who spends any time on this board surely already knows, consist almost entirely of stuff which has come out of his anus. They provide ample evidence of what can be produced even by quite simple neural structures like those of slugs and snails.

UE, do you want to actually take part in the discussion, or just sit there on the sideline throwing mud?

I'll say it again: You have deliberately excluded the physical Universe from consideration in any explanation for awareness that you will accept. You have not given a reason for this beyond the obvious - that awareness has a subjective component.

Well, here's some news: We know that. Thanks. The point of self-referential information processing is that it shows us how it is possible for subjective experience to arise in a physical system.

Since we already know that subjective experience does arise in a physical system - there is no rational question that minds are produced by brains - and we also have a basic mechanism for how this is possible, all that is left is the details, i.e. all the actual work. Which is proceeding nicely, because it completely ignores the protestations of the Australian National University Philosophy Department that we can't do what we are doing.

 

[PixyMisa]

I don't agree. From my POV, this is just a means of delaying the inevitable admission that it is not reducible. My position is that we already know it is irreducible and that a large proportion of the scientific community refuses to acknowledge this is the case, and that the reasons for this refusal are ideological and not scientific.

Sorry, but this is complete baloney.

Of course it's reducible. It's produced by a network of neurons, therefore it reduces to the activities of those neurons.

Or you're invoking magic.

From my POV, I see no difference between what you've just said and a creationist telling me that he believes that one day science will prove creationism is true and that my rejection of this is caused by pessimism - that I've "given up" without trying. There's no point in continuing to try to do something if you already have enough information to KNOW that it is impossible. That's not "giving up". It is "accepting reality."

What you are accepting has precisely zero to do with reality. That's the problem. We know for certain that we can explain awareness in terms of neural processes because we know for certain that that is how it is formed. Just as we know for certain that we can explain human biology in terms of cells or chemical properties in terms of atoms.

You're not "accepting reality". You're demanding an exception from reality.

Consciousness CANNOT be reduced to brain activity and this debate can go nowhere until the scientific community collectively admits that this is the case instead of preventing further advances in understanding by insisting that there is still some possibility that one day there will be a proper materialistic definition of consciousness.

Yer wrong.

What I see at the moment is an attitude which says "either we provide a materialistic definition (however inadequate) or we will dig our heels in, do a mule impression, and make sure that the debate goes absolutely nowhere." And so the debate goes nowhere. It has gone nowhere for 400 years - for the scientists that is. Meanwhile, unnoticed by most scientists, philosophy has been busy making progress on this issue for at least the last 200 years. Whilst the scientists flap around going nowhere, unable even to agree on a definition of the thing they claim they can one day explain, this topic has been explored exhaustively by philosophy. Why aren't the scientists interested in that philosophy? Answer: partly because it requires a whole load of hard work they aren't interested in doing (understanding Kant and Wittgenstein is harder than science), and partly because it leads to philosophical/religious positions which they mistakenly believe have already been destroyed by science. Why do a load of hard work to lead you in a direction you don't want to go in when you can instead simply claim, incorrectly, that "one day science will nail this" and go on believing whatever you fancy?

UCE, every part of that was complete and utter nonsense; in fact, you have things entirely reversed.

It is philosophy that is mired in unreality and making no progress on the question of consciousness, unable to come up with even a coherent definition. Science, on the other hand, has produced an astounding revolution of knowledge on how our brains do what they do. Listen to the MIT Introduction to Pyschology lecture series. Of course, Professor Jeremy Wolfe dismisses all your objections as rubbish in the first minute of the first lecture, but if you can get past that you stand to learn an enormous amount.

All your protestations stand for nothing, because we know that we can explain consciousness in purely physical terms because we know in turn that consciousness is a purely physical process. Minds are produced by brains. This is a fact, and all else follows.

 

[Maia]

Pretty much what they are doing right now. I don't believe the problem here is cognitive science or what cognitive scientists are doing. The problem is that some of them, most notably Dennett, are saying things which aren't supported by any science. So what I want them to do is actual science instead of poor-quality speculative philosophy. I also want them to concentrate a bit harder on what they don't know and why they don't know it, instead of claiming that they do know it (or could in the future) thereby ignoring the reasons why they can't.

To be fair, I really don't care for demagogues like Dennett either. I'm not so sure if I'd go on to say this:

There is a term in cognitive science: "Explanatory Gap". Cognitive scientists simply have to admit that this gap cannot be bridged by science, get on with stuff on their own side of the gap and leave the gap itself to be tackled by philosophers. Proper philosophers (i.e. not Dennett, who lacks the guts and intellectual honesty to admit the gap exists.) And yes that was indeed a personal attack on Dennett. I don't just think he is a bad philosopher. I think he is a complete [rhymes with punt].




I'm happy to agree that there are things happening in brains which determine the content of awareness.



I have no problem with people trying to figure out what is happening in the brain, what I object to is the claim that we already have enough evidence to support the claim that whatever is happening in the brain is sufficient for an explanation of consciousness/awareness.

I've lost count of the number of times I've had to explain this on this board: When I deny that brains are a sufficient explanation for awareness I am NOT claiming that brains have nothing to do with awareness or that science shouldn't try to investigate such things. What I am claiming is that regardless of how good an explanation we have of what is going on in a brain, we still won't have the full story and we already know already that we won't have the full story.

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.

I am not trying to stop scientists from doing anything which is recognisable as actual science. I am trying to stop them from going further than this and making claims which are (a) unsupported by science and (b) philosophically problematic.

Again, I have to agree. I just don't think I agree with why UE makes these statements.

 

[Maia]

ETA: This stupid thing is in one of its not-letting-me-edit moods.

One example of what I'm talking about here as far as the ridiculous philosophical pronouncements is the way that Dennett speculated on whether or not double transduction actually existed; in other words, whether a "second transduction process" existed in the brain which rearranged incoming and outgoing data (which I guess he thought represented some aspect of the Cartesian theater.) What he then said (in that video clip) was that if materialist theory worked, then it couldn't exist. Well, NO, double transduction either exists, or it doesn't. You just can't say that existence or nonexistence can be confidently predicted by a theory!!

And, UE...

All your protestations stand for nothing, because we know that we can explain consciousness in purely physical terms because we know in turn that consciousness is a purely physical process. Minds are produced by brains. This is a fact, and all else follows.
__________________

You've got to go there, hon. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Then you have to read John Shelby Spong's latest book, and you'll see.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

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.

Just so everyone is clear, while this may be true of Dennett (and I do not know because I can't stand his writing style, so I can't say if he does or does not concentrate on pathology) it is not true of most people working on physical explanations of conscious -- particularly neurologists -- who do concentrate on pathological cases. But pathology alone will never tell us all we need to know. We must extend beyond it -- this is one of the recurrent stories in neurology. Pathology gives us functional loci, but the way the system works is always much more complex. Now that we have functional imaging systems we needn't concentrate nearly so much on pathology as in the past.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

ETA: This stupid thing is in one of its not-letting-me-edit moods.

One example of what I'm talking about here as far as the ridiculous philosophical pronouncements is the way that Dennett speculated on whether or not double transduction actually existed; in other words, whether a "second transduction process" existed in the brain which rearranged incoming and outgoing data (which I guess he thought represented some aspect of the Cartesian theater.) What he then said (in that video clip) was that if materialist theory worked, then it couldn't exist. Well, NO, double transduction either exists, or it doesn't. You just can't say that existence or nonexistence can be confidently predicted by a theory!!

Wait a second here. That sounds to me like he is making a prediction. I haven't seen the video, but are you suggesting that he is dictating reality based on a theory, or that he is making a prediction of what he thinks we will find based on his understanding of the theory? Correct that a pathway either exists or not.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Wait, I just gave several examples of ways in which the brain does fill in with "false information" so I am clearly not arguing that there is no filling in of information, only that the process is more complex than it is commonly portrayed.

Okay, but there is a difference between filling in with false information and "simply isn't". So it should either be true that we fill in around our blind spot, or that we simply don't perceive anything. Either way, by the way, we don't see what's at the blind spot. But in one case our subjective visual field nevertheless has something in it. In the other case there is no subjective visual field there at all.

With the blind spot there simply "isn't" -- it's just missing information that is glossed over in the processing of the world.

...and here I can only presume you're saying that we simply lack any perception in the blind spot.

If we "filled in" with something else then we would never be able to find the blind spot.

Wrong. If I perform a simple blind spot experiment with two dots, what seems to happen is that when I arrive at a particular distance, the dot in my blind spot disappears. But that's not all--it also seems to be filled in with the background color--not the color of the dot, mind you, but the background.

If what actually happens in the visual cortex aligns with what seems to happen subjectively, then the blind spot would be filled in with the background color, and I would not see something that is the color of the dot.

This scenario has filling in in it, and it also has my finding the blind spot in it. So the implication that if there is filling in then we would not be able to find the blind spot is clearly false.

What you seem to be imagining is that if filling in occurs, as opposed to merely nothing happening, I should see the spot--even when it's in my blind spot--because my brain expects it to be there. But this is only true with a particular mechanism of filling in.

When you examine people to demonstrate it what you see is -- "No, I don't see your finger any longer", not "I see x".

Yes. I don't see the dot. But that doesn't show that filling in doesn't occur. It just shows that the blind spot isn't filled in with the dot.

We do not confabulate information in all situations.

Confabulation I believe is different. Filling in doesn't have to work in such a way as to give us some consistent view of the world overall, and in fact I doubt that the filling in around the blind spot would be working that way anyway. Filling in would simply be patching over the missing information.

 

[Maia]

Wait a second here. That sounds to me like he is making a prediction. I haven't seen the video, but are you suggesting that he is dictating reality based on a theory, or that he is making a prediction of what he thinks we will find based on his understanding of the theory? Correct that a pathway either exists or not.

I have to say, it really sounded to me like it was the first option. I'm sure that if you asked him after the lecture, he'd actually say he was just making a prediction. But he definitely made it sound like he had received the one-and-only revelation of ultimate truth from Mt. Sinai about reality itself and was now entitled to ultimate snippiness about it, and--

Okay, okay, that's enough. Ick! Dennett is at the very top of my list of people I never want to be stuck on a desert island with, let's just say. I don't think that self-appointed "philosophers" in general have learned anywhere near enough from the work that's been done by neurologists. But I have to say, I think that comparative work involving pathologies is the gold standard, more valuable than ever now that tools like functional MRI's are in wide use.

Oh, yeah, and I just read a long study about the "filling-in" phenomenon. I think it's the one linked to from Wiki.

 

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Yes, that is what I meant by including intentionality, but I think intentionality is also unconscious; so it cannot be a dividing line between consciousness and unconsciousness -- which I know was not your point. Yes, I agree that awareness is about something. There are folks who would disagree, however, and who think that non-directed awareness is possible.

As to awareness without attention, yes, point well taken.

Ichneumonwasp, this has got me puzzled.

When you speak of intentionality, do you mean that we cannot, without lapsing into gibberish, talk of our being aware without our being aware of something-or-other?

If you do, then we are agreed. However, as I see it, it's a trivial observation about the intelligible use of the word aware. Intentionality, in the sense I have in mind, is neither conscious nor unconscious.

Of course, you may have had something else in mind. Any clarification would be welcome.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Okay, but there is a difference between filling in with false information and "simply isn't". So it should either be true that we fill in around our blind spot, or that we simply don't perceive anything. Either way, by the way, we don't see what's at the blind spot. But in one case our subjective visual field nevertheless has something in it. In the other case there is no subjective visual field there at all.

...and here I can only presume you're saying that we simply lack any perception in the blind spot.

Wrong. If I perform a simple blind spot experiment with two dots, what seems to happen is that when I arrive at a particular distance, the dot in my blind spot disappears. But that's not all--it also seems to be filled in with the background color--not the color of the dot, mind you, but the background.

If what actually happens in the visual cortex aligns with what seems to happen subjectively, then the blind spot would be filled in with the background color, and I would not see something that is the color of the dot.

This scenario has filling in in it, and it also has my finding the blind spot in it. So the implication that if there is filling in then we would not be able to find the blind spot is clearly false.

What you seem to be imagining is that if filling in occurs, as opposed to merely nothing happening, I should see the spot--even when it's in my blind spot--because my brain expects it to be there. But this is only true with a particular mechanism of filling in.

Yes. I don't see the dot. But that doesn't show that filling in doesn't occur. It just shows that the blind spot isn't filled in with the dot.

Confabulation I believe is different. Filling in doesn't have to work in such a way as to give us some consistent view of the world overall, and in fact I doubt that the filling in around the blind spot would be working that way anyway. Filling in would simply be patching over the missing information.

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 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). 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.

Yes, confabulation is a different ballgame -- but there we can point to something that is clearly filled in. There are many other examples in psychology (and neurology) of such phenomena; but I didn't want people to walk away with the idea that anything missing is necessarily "filled in" because I don't believe that is the case. Sometimes there is simply nothing there.

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

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Ichneumonwasp, this has got me puzzled.

When you speak of intentionality, do you mean that we cannot, without lapsing into gibberish, talk of our being aware without our being aware of something-or-other?

If you do, then we are agreed. However, as I see it, it's a trivial observation about the intelligible use of the word aware. Intentionality, in the sense I have in mind, is neither conscious nor unconscious.

Of course, you may have had something else in mind. Any clarification would be welcome.

No, I don' have anything else in mind. I am more interested in building up the idea of awareness from the ground up. All mental faculties seem to have the property of intentionality associated with them, though some folks argue that some emotional states do not -- we might experience generalized fear without a clear cause, for instance. But even with this example there is fear of something -- that something just isn't defined.

It isn't a big point. But it is a starting point. And, yes, it is a very trivial observation. And, yes, it is part of both unconscious and conscious processes.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I have to say, it really sounded to me like it was the first option. I'm sure that if you asked him after the lecture, he'd actually say he was just making a prediction. But he definitely made it sound like he had received the one-and-only revelation of ultimate truth from Mt. Sinai about reality itself and was now entitled to ultimate snippiness about it, and--

Okay, okay, that's enough. Ick! Dennett is at the very top of my list of people I never want to be stuck on a desert island with, let's just say. I don't think that self-appointed "philosophers" in general have learned anywhere near enough from the work that's been done by neurologists. But I have to say, I think that comparative work involving pathologies is the gold standard, more valuable than ever now that tools like functional MRI's are in wide use.

Oh, yeah, and I just read a long study about the "filling-in" phenomenon. I think it's the one linked to from Wiki.

Well I can't say that I'm a big Dennett fan, but I haven't read that much of his stuff.

Keep in mind that pathology was the neurological gold standard in the past (when we had no other tools), but we have much better tools today. Pathology is still an important tool for localizing processes to brain regions, but the new approach is to take that as beginning information and ask questions using functional MRI, PET, or MEG. Those are rapidly becoming the new gold standards (though there are still interpretation problems with all of them).

 

[AkuManiMani]

To re-iterate from another thread: I have no answer to this question.

Whatever we mean by 'awareness' it seems that it must include attention. But is attention alone necessary or does awareness include other aspects?

I would like to avoid dualism from the outset, so we will need to be careful not to define awareness in terms of a homonculus since to do so would be to lose the game from the outset.

We will obviously need to define attention, but what else is a necessary component of awareness? Is awareness always awareness of something? Need we include intentionality to the notion of awareness?

I think we do. What do others think?

The words "consciousness" and "awareness" can be used synonymously but, personally, I prefer to define "consciousness" as lucid/semi-lucid mental states and "awareness" as the scope of one's conscious attention.

 

[Lord Muck oGentry]

"Awareness of something" was brought up here already



Indicating that it is superfluous to talk about awareness as if it was an isolated event.

Since I'm being quoted here, I'd like to add that awareness, in the sense I had in mind, is not an isolated event. It isn't an event at all.

 

[kellyb]

I am not sure that we can be said to be aware of anything to which we do not attend. There are certainly streams of info that impinge on our nervous system to which we do not attend, but are we properly speaking 'aware' of this information when we do not pay attention to it?

I would call it "semi-aware".

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

The words "consciousness" and "awareness" can be used synonymously but, personally, I prefer to define "consciousness" as lucid/semi-lucid mental states and "awareness" as the scope of one's conscious attention.

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.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I would call it "semi-aware".

So, as we clearly have several different levels of what we call consciousness, we have at least two and possibly more levels of awareness? Would that be a fair statement?

I think I agree. But I think I'm also not at all clear what 'awareness' means.

 

[kellyb]

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 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). 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.

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...

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

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 directly related.

It's probably migraine rather than seizure. What we do seem to know of migraine auras such as that is that they are associated with a spreading depression of neural activity -- the depression has been seen directly with MEG -- so that you have experienced a reversible form of neurological disability.

And thank you for sharing your experiences. They add not only very useful information but a human dimension that is often lacking from such discussions.

 

[kellyb]

So, as we clearly have several different levels of what we call consciousness, we have at least two and possibly more levels of awareness? Would that be a fair statement?

I think I agree. But I think I'm also not at all clear what 'awareness' means.

I guess I was using consciousness and awareness interchangably. But they seem different, too, in that awareness seems to be a component of consciousness.

I'm confusing myself. lol.