Your self-awareness and monologue may be the strongest barriers to your consciousness. Buddhists strive a achieve a very different consciousness. Imagine your thinking with no biases limiting your awareness. Through meditation, you can liberate your mind and gain a higher level of consciousness.
But most of us prefer to busy ourselves with interesting distractions, and we don't want to put in the effort to become enlightened.

If you want to know more google for a set of 14 disc titled "the SCIENCE of ENLIGHTENMENT- Teachings & Meditations for Awakening Through Self-Investigation" by Shinzen Young. After listening to about 4 discs, I lost interest and went on to something else. I am more attracted to economic, political, and cultural matters. I flunk Buddhism. My brain is like a chattering monkey that never shuts up.

An experiment I read of some time back involved a person reacting to a warning signal without actually being conscious of it. If you are reading a book you are aware of the act, though your thoughts are focused on what you are reading.

Yes we would function but at a very primitive level and our ability to communicate and invent would be non-existent … — kindred

Yes. But not like plants. Like animals. Stimulus and response. There's nothing necessarily "bad." It might even be bliss. Maybe our infatuation with communicating and inventing (Mind, not consciousness) is classical Narcissus: in love with our own reflections (representations); an illusion, the cause of enjoyment, but also suffering. Maybe bliss stops at natural stimulus response based pleasure and pain.

I’m not sure I know exactly what consciousness is or what is happening to give rise to conscious experience. — kindred

If you've ever participated in other discussions here about consciousness, you might have noticed that they often - almost always - break down because people don't define what they mean carefully. "Consciousness" and related words can have many meanings. I'm going to plagiarize from something I wrote a few years ago. These are definitions of some words related to consciousness I got from the web.

Consciousness

• The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world
• Sentience or awareness of internal and external existence
• Our personal experience of the world. The movie playing in our head.
• Everything you experience; the tune stuck in your head, the sweetness of chocolate mousse, the throbbing pain of a toothache, the fierce love for your child and the bitter knowledge that eventually all feelings will end
• What it is like to be _?

Self-consciousness - Most of the definitions and synonyms relate to shyness or social anxiety. In the context of this discussion, it might be considered awareness of how other people see you or your behavior. It is also used as a synonym for self-awareness.

Attention

• Relatively low level behavior used to focus the senses, from sight to hearing and even smell.
• A selective narrowing or focusing of consciousness and receptivity
• The ability to actively process specific information in the environment while tuning out other details

Awareness

• Perceptions of the world as a whole rather than our own internal experience.
• The ability to register and interpret sensory information from the environment.
• The perception or knowledge of something.

Self-awareness

• Conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires.
• An awareness of one's own personality or individuality
• An awareness of our own values, passions, aspirations, fit with our environment, reactions (including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses), and impact on others.

Sentience

• Feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought
• Sentience is the capacity to be aware of feelings and sensations
• In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations (known in philosophy of mind as “qualia”).
• In the context of animal welfare, saying that animals are sentient means that they are able to feel pain.

Mind

• The element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought
• The element or complex of elements in an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons
• The set of faculties including cognitive aspects such as consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, intelligence, judgement, language and memory, as well as noncognitive aspects such as emotion and instinct.

Sorry. I'm not sure if this is helpful or not. There's a lot of overlap and circular definitions, so it's not hard to understand why there is confusion.

So, depending on what definition we use, certainly we could function without consciousness. Could we function without self-awareness? Well, most animals do. Some psychologists and cognitive scientists believe that certain non-human animals do have some self-awareness. If you like science fiction, I recommend "Blindsight." It's about intelligent aliens with advanced technology but no individual self-awareness. Trying to figure out what it must be like to be one of those aliens is interesting and provocative.

:up: :up:

I think it's very helpful. The dictionary definitions of consciousness bring out two usages, one for content and one for the fact of awareness

I'm going to plagiarize from something I wrote a few years ago. — T Clark

I think that's allowed. :up: :grin:

I agree with Nagel's view in What is it like to be a bat?

...an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism – something it is like for the organism. — Thomas Nagel

Subjective experience. Not simply physical objects and/or processes.

What is it like to be a bat? A human? A fly? An amoeba? An oak tree? A fungus? A rock? A length of rope? I wouldn't be surprised if all agree that there is nothing it is like to be a rock; that a rock is not conscious. Some might agree that only living things can be conscious. Some might agree that we cannot know where the line between living things with and without consciousness is. That is, we don't know exactly what minimal observable physical characteristics or behaviors are proof of consciousness.

That was a lot of work defining different aspects of consciousness. A neighbor had a sign on her door that said "Just because you thinking it, it doesn't make it so." Especially
Daniel Kahneman is well known for writing a book about why our judgment can be so bad.

This quest to understand how we think is very old, and two of my favorites are William James and John Dewey, who are known for their books and leadership in education. We changed how we teach children to think in 1958 with the National Defense Education Act, and now Chris Hedges's book "EMPIRE OF ILLUSION- THE END OF LITERACY AND THE TRIUMPH OF SPECTACLE" explains why Hitler and Trump are so popular.

There can hardly be a more complex subject than human thinking and control.

I have heard of animals saving humans from serious danger because the animal is aware of things that do not register in the human experience. Such as a deer blocking a road and doing its best to prevent humans from moving forward. Those humans who obey the animals' warning survive, and those who do not die because the animal is aware of a landslide about to happen, or earthquake, or a tidal wave.

The more dependent we are on modern thinking, the less sensitive to nature we can be. A low IQ person can be more perceptive than a high IQ person. For example, I was visiting a nursing home with a low IQ friend. On our way out, it was obvious we had to have a code to open the gate. I began to turn to get the code, while my friend reached through the gate and opened it from the outside. That is an example of civilization making us stupid as we stumble through life thinking too much and not getting desired results. :lol:

Is consciousness the same as awareness (or even awareness of one’s thoughts)? — kindred

"The same" as in can be used interchangeably in any case, context, or scenario? Clearly not.

I’m not sure I know exactly what consciousness is or what is happening to give rise to conscious experience. — kindred

Nobody is, apparently. :smirk:

Is there anything special about consciousness? I guess it separates us as life forms compared to plants which do not posses consciousness but are mostly stimuli driven … is consciousness just a more refined form of subject to stimuli-environmental interaction ? — kindred

Special? It must be, hence the millennia of debate on the matter. "Just a more refined form" seems to gloss over the -- basically infinite -- amount and level of depth that comes with the broad concept of form itself. Is the modern international mail and parcel delivery system "just a more refined form" of me handing you a piece of paper? Is the Grand Canyon just a big hole? I mean, sure, but one typically refrains from such comparisons likely owing to the fact such oversimplification is generally seen and thought of as a display of ignorance.

Specifically, I believe, the answer is generally considered "not quite". Take an advanced robot that can detect 1000 times your level of physical observable perception, every facet of any dust molecule for further than the human eye can see. It doesn't "know" things, it merely observes and responds as a result. Without going too far into the free will aspect, it's clearly a world of difference.

Is there much of a difference between awareness and consciousness or are these two things the same or closely related ? — kindred

"To be aware of something" ... how could you unpack this into words and a single agreed upon definition that fits every situation, every scenario, every case no matter how obscure and unlikely...

A plant is "aware" of threats to its environment and releases chemicals as a result, per se, depending on how generous you'd like to be as far as wordage and vernacular. So, I would say: [there is] probably [considerable difference].

A subset property of consciousness or awareness I suppose is “thinking” whether concrete, abstract or conceptual occurs in the stream of consciousness as conceptual steps to perhaps problem solving or types of creative processes, yet I cannot help but feel that thinking, consciousness and awareness are pretty much the same thing and that perhaps the distinction between them can overlap or be blurred.

From this perspective if we didn’t have consciousness then there would be no place for thinking to occur in and we’d merely be stimuli reacting automatons like plants. Yes we would function but at a very primitive level and our ability to communicate and invent would be non-existent … — kindred

"I think, therefore I am" comes to mind. To me a requirement for something to be considered conscious or intelligent is understanding of the passing of time. Past, present, future ie. "I woke up today, I am awake now, and, if alive, will inevitably be going to sleep later". The ability to store memories and knowledge and "access" said information is certainly a requirement. And yet, a computer can do the same, functionally, at least. But we wouldn't consider that "consciousness" as it's simply following a combination of programming and user commands.

Compare something generally thought of as non-intelligent yet having a nervous system and a brain, say, a fly. There are plenty bodily and organic systems relatively similar to those of human beings, but, do we really think a fly "makes decisions" or "ponders concepts" the way a mammalian brain does? Does a fish? Probably not!

Inventing is an interesting concept, yes. Beavers build lodges, squirrels hide away food for the winter, ants practice agriculture and slavery, surely they know what they're doing, at least in some sense. Or do they? They must, right?

Thoughts ? — kindred

Oh, offer us a penny first, at least. :grin:

What are thoughts, really? Often a response or handling of emotions or physical stimuli, especially things, situations, and circumstances that affect one's biological needs and personal desires. You feel hungry, "I'm hungry, I want a pizza". You're on a budget and your cell phone bill is due in a few days, "I really shouldn't order a large pizza, so maybe I'll just get a hotdog and some chips." You're single and the counter lady is attractive, "I'm going to ask her if she's single." She replies in the negative and it annoys you, "Dang it, every time!" So on and so forth. It's like, one's personal narrative or movie commentary going on every waking moment. Perhaps not the best example... others are welcome to provide a more accurate one.

That was a lot of work defining different aspects of consciousness. — Athena

As I noted, most of it was from an OP I wrote four years ago.

I realized that, but since you mentioned it again, I wonder, was it easier for you to do such work when you were younger or do you feel your years have improved your thinking? I miss the energy I once had but think I am developing a better understand of meaning. I just don't have the energy for all the work you did. I wish we lived at least 300 years with a constant feeling of energy. I think we could come up with some awesome thinking.

Back to the question of this thread: Could we function without consciousness? Machines function without consciousness, and animals are preprogrammed, so they can function without consciousness.

Going with the reading about thinking that I have done, we mostly operate without thinking, and we run on automatic. We drive best and dance best when we can do these things without thinking. We might even write better without being aware of why we think as we do. Great inventions have been the result of intuition or a dream.

When we do think, there is no assurance we are doing that well and with the correct information. Our decisions may be based on childhood memories of which we are not aware. Discussing our childhoods with a brother or sister may result in very different stories that do not agree. We are conscious only of our own point of view, and learning of our past by accepting someone's story is as legitimate as ours, may be life-changing.

was it easier for you to do such work when you were younger or do you feel your years have improved your thinking? — Athena

It's not that it was easier when I was younger (and four years is not much younger.) It's that I've spent a lot of time thinking and writing since I joined the forum. In that time, I've answered, or at least laid out the answers to, the philosophical questions that are at the heart of my understanding of how the world works. I've said everything 15 times and it's hard to keep saying them. So, I have less energy to contribute to my participation here. More and more, as I start to respond to a post, I find myself stopping and saying to myself - I don't want to have to go through that argument again.

Thoughts ? — kindred

When someone starts a discussion, it is expected they will participate in it. People have put significant effort into their responses. Time for you to put some more effort in too.

Thanks for your thoughtful and thorough responses they’ve definitely helped my understanding of the subject I was aiming to tackle in my post better and apologies for lack of replies I’ve been rather busy this weekend.

In regards to my question whether we could function without consciousness it seems to have been answered. Take fish for example, there’s probably disagreement whether as to the level of consciousness they possess yet demonstrably in nature they’re able to function i.e. eat and reproduce without issue.

As @Patterner pointed out we don’t know exactly what it’s like to be a fish or any other creature apart from ourselves in terms of the cognitive states they experience but can only infer from observation at least that they posses some degree of consciousness. I’d go as far as to say that even us humans can function without consciousness sometimes when performing certain tasks that require no thoughts such as walking breathing etc. this was hinted at by @Athenain their previous post.

What are thoughts, really? Often a response or handling of emotions or physical stimuli, especially things, situations, and circumstances that affect one's biological needs and personal desires. You feel hungry, "I'm hungry, I want a pizza". You're on a budget and your cell phone bill is due in a few days, "I really shouldn't order a large pizza, so maybe I'll just get a hotdog and some chips." You're single and the counter lady is attractive, "I'm going to ask her if she's single." She replies in the negative and it annoys you, "Dang it, every time!" So on and so forth. It's like, one's personal narrative or movie commentary going on every waking moment. Perhaps not the best example... others are welcome to provide a more accurate one — Outlander

Thoughts are cognitive processes often occurring linearly due to the demands of ones environment, physiology, desires and can be concrete or abstract like imagination. Thoughts can be self generating and not always in response to external demands.

as I read your post, I thought of the people who are completely out of their minds because of alcohol, drugs, or mental illness. Right now, a friend's neighbor is insane because she not using her meds. There is nothing anyone can do for her because we have gone too far with giving people freedom. My friend and I think someone needs to step in before something really bad happens or the woman is evicted and thrown on the streets where she not possible survive for long. How awful to be driven by thoughts that are crazy. What is consciousness then?