Consciousness: What is 'Awareness?'

Ichneumonwasp said:
Think I'll take a break to mull over possible workable definitions of feelings while you guys battle this one out. I'm afraid I don't find the issue even interesting -- the 'perceived locus of awareness'. It's a projection based on the primary sensory input (behind the eyes when seeing, etc.) and cannot be a 'perception' perse because there are no receptors in the brain for feeling or any other sensory phenomenon.

Have fun with it and have a great Christmas and New Years.
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Feeeeeeeliingggs... wo, wo, wo, Feeeeeeeliiinngggs
I wish I'd never...

never mind.
 
Robin said:
Depends what "it" is I suppose - any computation that the brain does can be done by a TM.

But it does not follow that a TM can produce this thing we call awareness or consciousness.
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Well, that has been precisely my point.

Because it does not seem that the physical action of consciousness-ing (to coin a verb, b/c we sorely need one) is a computation, or could be.

Which is why no one has yet (that I have ever heard of, or that anyone on this forum has ever mentioned) come up with a proposal of how computation alone could achieve the feat, any more than computation alone could achieve blinking or sweating.

How in the world it's done, we don't know. That's for sure.

But even though there's no doubt that Turing machines can do a lot of the things that brains do, so far there isn't any indication that they can do consciousness.
 
Hokulele said:
Your personal incredulity is noted.
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Duly noted. The same type of personal incredulity that one might expect if someone posted that their feet hover above the ground when they walk.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
I'm afraid I don't find the issue even interesting -- the 'perceived locus of awareness'. It's a projection based on the primary sensory input (behind the eyes when seeing, etc.) and cannot be a 'perception' perse because there are no receptors in the brain for feeling or any other sensory phenomenon.
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Well, that is what makes it so interesting now, isn't it?

There are no receptors in the brain for feeling or sensory phenomena, and yet this fuzzy-bordered sense of "me" hovers there behind our eyes and above our jaws.
 
Jeff Corey said:
Ichneumonwasp said:
Think I'll take a break to mull over possible workable definitions of feelings while you guys battle this one out. I'm afraid I don't find the issue even interesting -- the 'perceived locus of awareness'. It's a projection based on the primary sensory input (behind the eyes when seeing, etc.) and cannot be a 'perception' perse because there are no receptors in the brain for feeling or any other sensory phenomenon.

Have fun with it and have a great Christmas and New Years.
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'Perceived locus of awareness' is not 'perceived locus of awareness of awareness'. As to perception, do you contend mental processes per se cannot perceive?

And Happy Holidays to you as well.:)
There are glucoreceptors in our lateral and ventromedial nuclei of our hypothalamus that trigger and stop eating behavior.
So our sense of hunger obviously is located at the base of our brain, not right in back of the eyes.
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That would be 'locus of awareness'.

'Perceived locus of awareness of awareness' allows you the opportunity to refuse a second helping even though your locus of awareness might be signaling you are still hungry.
 
Piggy said:
Duly noted. The same type of personal incredulity that one might expect if someone posted that their feet hover above the ground when they walk.
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And, once again, the incredulity I witnessed that not everyone was aware of the purple aura to an unhealthy liver.

Piggy, could you clarify a bit? The locality of your feeling--by your description, it seems to me to be in your sinuses. Ich-wasp thought perhaps in the brain, where there are no sensory neurons. Could you take some time with a brain atlas and let us know where it is that you feel this?

Even better--could you PM me with this info instead of posting it? We can compare the locations of others as well...
 
Piggy said:
Well, that has been precisely my point.

Because it does not seem that the physical action of consciousness-ing (to coin a verb, b/c we sorely need one) is a computation, or could be.

Which is why no one has yet (that I have ever heard of, or that anyone on this forum has ever mentioned) come up with a proposal of how computation alone could achieve the feat, any more than computation alone could achieve blinking or sweating.

How in the world it's done, we don't know. That's for sure.

But even though there's no doubt that Turing machines can do a lot of the things that brains do, so far there isn't any indication that they can do consciousness.
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I completely agree.
 
Mercutio said:
Piggy, could you clarify a bit? The locality of your feeling--by your description, it seems to me to be in your sinuses. Ich-wasp thought perhaps in the brain, where there are no sensory neurons. Could you take some time with a brain atlas and let us know where it is that you feel this?
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As you can tell for yourself if you stop and pay attention to it, the area does not have a well defined border, and it's not like feeling, say, a pain in one's side -- or a pain anywhere else... it's not that type of sensation at all.

The region is indistinct, but we can say generally where it is and where it is certainly not.

It is not, for example, in the hands or the stomach.

It's certainly not "in my sinuses". Nor is it "in the brain".

But it is definitely above the jaw, and when I hold my arm straight up, my elbow is above it and to the side.

This is why we say, for example, "down in my stomach", rather than "up in my stomach", which we would probably say if this sensation were centered around our groin.
 
Piggy said:
As you can tell for yourself if you stop and pay attention to it [snip]
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What makes you think I have not tried?

Please.

I have not tried to dissuade you of your belief; I have merely tried to examine how you have come by it.

You do not have to accept it, but it is the case nonetheless, that there are people who do not experience this phenomenon you speak of.


I do thank you, though, for your clarification. It is clear enough that I can feel fairly certain that I do not share it. I do feel in my stomach, and in my chest, but not the sort of thing you are speaking of. If I force myself, I can feel something where you describe, but I can just as easily feel it in my left earlobe (I just tried); it is not something that naturally rests anywhere, and is not something I am normally aware of at all; I suspect it is suggestion. I have seen far more dramatic examples of suggestion, so there is no reason to--for me (I obviously cannot speak for you)--think of it as a sense of awareness.

Again, I thank you for your description. It would have been cool if it had described me as well, but at least it confirmed our difference.
 
Piggy said:
Mercutio, I flatly do not believe you.
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Well, I haven't lied and I do not feel the same thing you do, or at least what I think you mean. As I mentioned to AlBell, if I have my eyes open and am focusing on an object, I feel as if my "attention" (Yay! Reference to OP!) is centered behind my eyes about 3 inches back into my head. If I close my eyes and listen carefully, I feel as if my "attention" is somewhere just inside the back of my skull between my ears. When I do something active, I am most aware of my core, and all my actions seem to flow from there.

I honestly do not feel a location for this sensation if I just sit still and do nothing or something neutral like breath control meditation.

Is your sensation always located in the same place, or does it drift a bit? Can you deliberately move it around?
 
Mine is always in that location. I've had no success in attempts to move it around, or even budge it. I've tried.

Piggy: Why would you think every aspect of your perceptual perspective should be universal? What's so surprising about another person's brain being wired a bit differently?
 
yy2bggggs said:
Mine is always in that location. I've had no success in attempts to move it around, or even budge it. I've tried.
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It's kind of fun. I can almost feel it moving backwards when I close my eyes. If I close my eyes in a quiet room and focusing on touching something with my index finger, it tries to wander down my arm but seems to get stuck around my shoulder. It does take a little bit of effort in that I have to focus on using the one sense. I'll have to try feeling something with my toes and see how low it will go.

I haven't tried putting it in my earlobe like Mercutio.
 
Hokulele said:
It does take a little bit of effort in that I have to focus on using the one sense.
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I've tried attending to a particular sense... doesn't help. But it's interesting that you get it to move by doing so... that sounds like it might place this phenomena in a similar bucket to eye dominance, on a broader scale.

If that were the case it wouldn't surprise me that it's reported to be behind the eyes whenever I see this turn up, since there's a hell of a lot of brain devoted to the visual system.

Anyway, your toes and body parts are small scale... see if you can move it outside of your body. (Maybe try holding a pen and running across something textured for a start? I can get a percept that I'm feeling beyond my body's borders doing that--in particular, I feel like I'm feeling the surface at the end of the pen--if you could bind it to tactile feelings and you experience the same illusion, that might be worth a shot).
 
yy2bggggs said:
I've tried attending to a particular sense... doesn't help. But it's interesting that you get it to move by doing so... that sounds like it might place this phenomena in a similar bucket to eye dominance, on a broader scale.

If that were the case it wouldn't surprise me that it's reported to be behind the eyes whenever I see this turn up, since there's a hell of a lot of brain devoted to the visual system.
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That makes sense to me, but then again, I am not a neuroscientist.

Anyway, your toes and body parts are small scale... see if you can move it outside of your body. (Maybe try holding a pen and running across something textured for a start? I can get a percept that I'm feeling beyond my body's borders doing that--in particular, I feel like I'm feeling the surface at the end of the pen--if you could bind it to tactile feelings and you experience the same illusion, that might be worth a shot).
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I can't recall ever feeling like a central "I" is outside my body, but I get a feeling similar to your pen example every time I ride a mountain bike. It isn't so much that I think the bike is an extension of my body, but the feeling that my body extends all the way to the ground, even though I know perfectly well the closest part of me is still several inches higher. I wonder if stilt walkers experience anything similar? That would be kind of cool.

I will have to try putting the sensation outside of my body sometime when there are fewer distractions around (hubby is watching TV right now).
 
yy2bggggs said:
Mine is always in that location. I've had no success in attempts to move it around, or even budge it. I've tried.

Piggy: Why would you think every aspect of your perceptual perspective should be universal? What's so surprising about another person's brain being wired a bit differently?
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I find it quite plausible that the reason for different attitudes to consciousness is because of different experiences of consciousness.
 
westprog said:
I find it quite plausible that the reason for different attitudes to consciousness is because of different experiences of consciousness.
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I find the above absolutely meaningless. All consciousness is exactly the same in all respect in which it is the same, and entirely different in all respects that it is different. To say that different attitudes are due to different experiences of consciousness is to say... nothing.
 
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