But (contentious as what I’ve so far written might be) back to the central point: My take so far is that all interpretations of “consciousness” will encompass awareness. This although certain notions of consciousness will specify only certain forms of awareness and therefore label other forms of awareness as not constituting consciousness proper. — javra

First off, I didn't think your discussion of "awareness" was contentious at all. As I noted in my OP, I did not consider it because I thought it was a general term. You're right, though, you can't be self-aware without being aware. I have no objections to keeping it in the discussion. Do you think it adds to the discussion of "consciousness" in a way that "self-aware" does not?

I was not criticising it, but simply read it when waking up in the middle of the night, so my response may have seemed a bit grungy. — Jack Cummins

I didn't think your post was critical at all. This is the kind of conversation I want to have.

The reason why I think your question is so good is that we use the word so often on this site, and I know that I have written threads including the word consciousness. While people are inclined to seek definitions, I am not sure that there are many discussions here about the specific meaning of the term consciousness. — Jack Cummins

As I noted, this is exactly why I started this thread.

I have a different position. My own understanding of consciousness incorporates a possible collective unconscious as a source of consciousness, or of levels of consciousness as dimensions. But, I will stop here, because I am going into what is consciousness and I believe that you are looking more specifically at what we mean by the term consciousness, although it is linked because people probably use the word differently. — Jack Cummins

I like talking about all aspects of consciousness. It tests my understanding of the interactions between human understanding and reality. But, as you note, if we drift off target I'm afraid the main goal of this discussion will be lost.

On the other hand, as I mentioned in an earlier response to one of your posts, I think we do need to talk about the subconscious and unconsciousness. My first take is that they are part of our minds but not of our consciousnesses. I'm not sure about that. If you want to discuss that, that would be fine. As I noted before, I will add more on that if I can just catch up on all the comments.

n short, the OP isn't really about the word "consciousness", nor is it about consciousness, it's actually about language in general and Latin & English in particular. — TheMadFool

I'm happy for us to look at the language issues about "consciousness" and related words as you have done, but no, the post is not about language in general or Latin and English in particular. It's about a mental phenomenon or phenomena.

Headed for bed. I'll pick this up in the morning.

Are you familiar with the original paper, which is here — Wayfarer

I have read various discussions about it, but I haven't read this. I will.

I hope you don't mind if I steal the text you linked from @Pantagruel's discussion.

How is degree of consciousness quantified?
— Pantagruel
I agree with Wayfarer, it's binary not "a matter of degree" like a dimmer. Why think this? I understand things this way:

• pre-awareness = attention (orientation)
• awareness = perception (experience)
• adaptivity = intelligence (optimizing heuristic error-correction)
• self-awareness = [Phenomenal-Self Modeling ~Metzinger]
• awareness of self-awareness = consciousness

Except for the last (sys. 2), every other cognitive modality (sys. 1 (aka "enabling blindspot for sys. 2")) is autonomic and continually manifests a non-zero degree of functioning (thus, quantifiable?); "consciousness", on the hand, is intermittent (i.e. flickering, alter-nating), or interrupted by variable moods, monotony, persistent high stressors, sleep / coma, drug & alcohol intoxication, psychotropics, brain trauma (e.g. PTSD) or psychosis, and so, therefore, is either online (1) or offline (0) frequently – even with variable frequency strongly correlated to different 'conscious-states' – each (baseline) waking-sleep cycle. — 180 Proof

Perhaps it might be useful to talk in terms of what you do or don't agree with or understand about this paper, as that is the one that defined the problem. — Wayfarer

I like this, but I'm not sure if I agree. Or at least I'm not sure this is what other people mean when they say "consciousness."

Quoting from @Pantagruel in that same discussion. I wish I had participated. Maybe I wouldn't need to have started this discussion at all.

Consciousness is a feature of an entity capable of manipulating its environment. And what determines the form and function of that entity? The successive and cumulative manipulations of its environment. An apparent circularity. — Pantagruel

I'm going to steal one of @Wayfarer's responses from that thread too:

Something is either conscius or it's not. Birds, bees, humans are conscious - unless they're not - but one is not 'more conscious' than the other. But I'm sure that birds are more intelligent than bees, and humans more than birds. — Wayfarer

Isn't that sentience?

Very general words - consciousness, love, meaning - are much harder to define, because they're polysemic, that is, they have different meanings in different contexts. — Wayfarer

All of the words I listed have other meanings. I tried to pick the definitions I think are relevant to the kinds of discussions we have on the forum. It would be nice if the people starting those discussions would be clear about these kinds of issues. That's not likely to happen. I mostly started this post to clarify in my own mind what I mean when I use these words.

The other, related issue is the domain of discourse in which the words are being used. For example, if you study both psychology and philosophy at an undergrad level (which I did) you will find the conception of mind in 'philosophy of mind' (philosophy) and in 'theories of the unconscious' (psychology) may be very different. They will refer to different sources and explore the subjects from different perspectives. They have different background assumptions and different aims in mind. — Wayfarer

As I said, I at least want to come up with a meaning that applies to the "hard problem of consciousness" people talk about. Which domain do you see that as part of? Maybe that's part of the problem - the people doing the talking aren't clear on that themselves.

The last point, is that I think much of the talk about 'consciousness' has seeped into Western discourse from Eastern sources... And that means at least some of the discussion about consciousness is freighted with (often implicit) references to Asiatic (Hindu/Buddhist) cultural memes. — Wayfarer

What impact does the source of the meaning, e.g. western or eastern, have on the meanings I'm trying to get at here?

I think that your definitions are fairly good, but I just wonder how the unconscious and subconscious fit into the picture, — Jack Cummins

Good point. I want to add some more about that in another post. I just didn't want my first one to be too long.

I am not really sure that I would clearly wish to come up with an overriding definition of consciousness, because it seems like trying to put it into a category. It seems larger than that, — Jack Cummins

I don't disagree, but my post was intended to address a particular need - What do we mean when we talk about the hard problem of consciousness? What do we mean when we talk about rocks being conscious? Actually, that's what inspired me to write about this. There was a discussion that included talk of inanimate objects being conscious. We talk about these things all the time and I'm never sure we're all talking about the same thing. Rather, at least sometimes, I'm sure we aren't all talking about the same thing.

I think some call this phenomenal consciousness or 'what is it like to be consciousness' per Nagel/Chalmers. — Tom Storm

I edited my post to include that as one of the definitions.

The best answer is to be found in a First Aid course. — Banno

At least read the post if you respond.

I think it's pretty clear from this thread and others that 3017 has posted to that 3017 simply is not interested in any sort of reasonable exchange. What do you say? — tim wood

I've enjoyed this thread, although it's been a bit frustrating. If you don't like his stuff, why participate?

I don't know what that means. — 3017amen

According to the OED, and any 6 year old you talk to, nuh-unh means "No; used especially to rebuff or contradict."

Charlie the whale. — 3017amen

Looked it up. The only reference was a song. Couldn't find any lyrics.

Unfortunately, that's incorrect — 3017amen

Nuh-unh.

Think of it this way, as Einstein eluded, if we were all Dr. Spock's or 'Spock-like', we wouldn't contemplate those kinds of things...there would be no need. — 3017amen

Commander Data thought about those things all the time.

By the way, "nuh-unh" is included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

I understand. I think the concepts of ethics and morality, in contemplation of the soul, are still valid but you are correct; I am postulating that seeing the soul as a distinct entity seperate to the body and mind should be discarded. — Brock Harding

Is this a response to me? You should tag posts and/or quotes if you are responding to a particular one.

As I wrote in my previous response, you are saying that your way of seeing things is better than theists. Since you haven't acknowledged and don't understand their way of seeing things, you haven't given them a credible reason for changing. Your approach is a bit arrogant.

What I am suggesting is that there needs to be a "third camp". — thewonder

I enjoyed what you've written. It seems to me your "third camp" is an attempt to find a way to take some of the energy out of the clash of left wing and right wing political beliefs that is playing out in the US now. That's a good thing. You are much more well read in political philosophy and history than I am, so, unfortunately, I don't really have anything to offer on the substance of your post.

A suggestion - use shorter paragraphs. It will make it easier to read. I tend to stay away from posts with long paragraphs. I'm glad I didn't on this one.

I postulate that most, if not all, current philosophy regarding the soul or spirit can be transposed to the ‘mind’. — Brock Harding

There are lots of words referring to our personal experience and essence out there - mind, soul, spirit, self, identity, ego, consciousness, self-awareness, personality, and character. I could come up with more if I took more time. I think you are right that there is a lot of overlap with these concepts, but it's also true that each is different from the rest. Most arose in the context of different beliefs about human nature.

It is my understanding that many, if not most, theologians see the soul as different from the mind. That belief is central to the beliefs of many religions. I'm not the one to discuss those differences. It seems to me that your attempt to "align" science and religion ignores that. You seem to be asking religious believers to give up important aspects of their beliefs to make them consistent with your scientific viewpoint.

What I mean is, philosophically, that lead me to the idea of Structuralism, which in turn lead me to atheist Simon Blackburn's take on same, thanks to ↪Manuel : The belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure. — 3017amen

You've talked a lot about structures and structuralism. Every time you have I've responded that I don't know what that means. I've read the writeup on structuralism in Wikipedia. Here's what Blackburn says (from Wikipedia)

[T]he belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure.

The first sentence seems trivial, almost tautological. I either don't know what "constant laws of abstract structure" means or I don't think they exist. Humans impose structures on reality. It has none of it's own.

Hence my questions about how we ourselves, might be more akin to the metaphysical, than the physical. — 3017amen

Are you tired of me saying "I don't know what this means"?

If mathematics in science/physics, are used to describe/explain much of the natural world, and considering the fact that it (math) is an abstract metaphysical language, what other things in life are considered abstract and metaphysical? Concerning our own ontology, the answer is consciousness (aka Idealism). And that leads to other abstract metaphysical features of or from consciousness: — 3017amen

I don't know what you're trying to get at and I don't see what any of this has to do with structuralism. Ditto for the rest of your post. I don't see how all the questions you ask are related to each other or structuralism.

You won't mind my noting this is very problematic. I would say that religion is one way of assigning values in the world. But knowing the world? How? Please feel free to define terms. — tim wood

Do you really doubt that religion is a way of knowing the world or just that it is a legitimate way of knowing the world?

Humans know the world through our human bodies using human sensory organs, human nervous systems, human endocrine systems, and lots of other human stuff . We have expanded the reach of our senses and minds using human technology. We don't know reality, we know human reality. Reality as we know it is inseparable from our humanity. Science as it's usually practiced doesn't recognize that. Other ways of knowing, including religion, do. I am not a theist and religion is not a way I use to understand the world, but I don't dismiss it either.

Agree with what? If you mean any no-abstract analysis of the natural world is possible, what would be one? — tim wood

They are different ways of looking at the same world. Science is wonderful, but it has shortcomings. There are ways of knowing the world that are not scientific. Religion is one of them.

Are we faced with yet another abstract analysis about the natural world?
— 3017amen
Is anything else possible? Or even conceivable?
— tim wood
Agree with this.
— T Clark
Agree with what? If you mean any no-abstract analysis of the natural world is possible, what would be one? — tim wood

I was agreeing with you.

Thanks for making that distinction. — schopenhauer1

Although I strongly disagree with your position on antinatalism, the subject that really annoys me is free will. A month ago, there were six threads active within a five day period. No, I don't propose that the number of free will discussions be should limited, but I reserve the right to whine about it.

Thank you so much for your contribution thus far. — 3017amen

I've enjoyed the discussion.

philosophy lives in words. Or, as you say, stories — 3017amen

What was there before there was abstract thought, language? Before there were living things. Were there trees before there was anyone or anything to see them, care about them, eat their leaves, climb in them, name them? Galaxies? Quarks? It makes sense to say "no," all there was was a big bucket of goo without the bucket.

Again - this is metaphysics. It's not true or false. It's a useful way of looking at things. Not the only way.

Back in the 60's, we thought everybody over 30 was worthless. — synthesis

Goggle Wheeler's Cloud first, you may use that as your [the] reference point... . — 3017amen

Ok, now I got the right one. On the surface, PAP reads a lot like Taoism. Lao Tzu might agree with just about every statement Wheeler makes related to it. Difference (I think) - The Tao Te Ching is metaphysics, a way of thinking about the world. I think Wheeler proposes that PAP is physics - an actual description of reality. If it is, it aught to be testable. Has it been tested? Has anyone tried?

if mathematics and natural laws are stories, are we living in a mystical, fictitious or abstract world of stories? I mean that in both literally and figuratively. — 3017amen

Yes.

I use the term from here: ethnoscience/structuralism: The belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure-Simon Blackburn. — 3017amen

Sorry. I still don't know what this means.

Should one wonder about causation then? — 3017amen

One should always wonder about causation, but I don't know how that connects with what I wrote.

Existence, for you then (as you described), could be simply abstract, not really real. Is that, in a sense, metaphysics? Or, is it some sort of Platonic existence where mathematical structures exist? Those questions seem rhetorical, but they're not. I'm just trying to piece together the rationale there... . — 3017amen

What was there before humanity - a big bucket full of goo without the bucket. All one undifferentiated thing - the Tao. We came along and started making distinctions, abstractions - trees, quarks, love. That's the world we know. Is that real? Sure, but the goo comes first. Lao Tzu wrote about the Tao:

It is hidden but always present.
I don't know who gave birth to it.
It is older than God.

What is your justification for joining religion with natural/physical sciences? They are antithetical. — tim wood

Disagree with this.

Are we faced with yet another abstract analysis about the natural world?
— 3017amen
Is anything else possible? Or even conceivable? — tim wood

Agree with this.

if the world is indeed will and representation, is that not an emotional/intellectual intention of some sort(?) Are we faced with yet another abstract analysis about the natural world? — 3017amen

Will and representation - is that Kant? I don't know what it means.

Goggle Wheeler's Cloud first, you may use that as your [the] reference point... . — 3017amen

It's a song.

Of course those laws are what's unseen behind the physical/natural world, or things-in-themselves. Hence, we have nothing but an abstract language to describe (and to some degree explain) things. — 3017amen

There are some who disagree, but for me, mathematics and natural laws are stories we tell ourselves. They have no independent reality outside of humanity.

The humanistic examples include human phenomena associated with human consciousness... In my view, those things are, by nature, abstract things-in-themselves. — 3017amen

I don't see why you would classify the phenomena you listed as "structures." Also, I think "abstract things-in-themselves" is a contradiction in terms.

To reiterate some of my earlier questions: "Some of this still makes me think about what Einstein said about the so-called causal connection between human sentience and religion/to posit God in the first place... . — 3017amen

As I said previously, for me, religious thought is just thought, so of course there is a connection between religion and human sentience.

Maybe the metaphysical questions are what does it mean to perceive something as abstract? Is the concept of God abstract? Is consciousness/sentience itself abstract?" — 3017amen

In a sense, anything described in human language is abstract. The only things not are things-in-themselves, or what I would call the Tao. As Lao Tzu wrote.

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

Ya ya, if you wanna be all reasonable and measured. — DingoJones

I try hard to be. I think I succeed about 65% of the time.

I’d bet the more trashy the more attention. — DingoJones

Shrug.

Let's say the world is a cosmic computer. And in that computer are all the choices (human volition) one can make in the world in order to arrive at an answer to a given question. In the context of cosmology, if one proceeds to hypothesize through the use of logic (synthetic a priori propositions/judgements), does that not imply that depending upon what actual questions we ask, our answers will only be commensurate or proportional to that which we ask? — 3017amen

I really don't understand.

I understand. That was POP's view, and wanted to get your thoughts on it. However if one embraces the notion of ethnoscience/structuralism: The belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure. then, things that are alive also include abstract structures. And abstract structures include human sentience. — 3017amen

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Maybe if you give me an example of the kind of abstract structure you're talking about.

Isn’t antinatalism an ideology? If not, doesn’t it become ideological if the anti-Natalist cannot let the subject go and everything they “contribute” to discussion is either the anti Natalist point or the anti natalist point disguised as something else? Plus the counter arguments not being much acknowledged as the broken record plays on. How is that not promoting an ideology? — DingoJones

The moderators here tend to use a light hand on these types of decisions, which is a good thing. S1 is a long-time established member. People respond to his threads. I don't see anything to get excited about. I usually just pass over his discussions.

I am attracted to the idea of a world w here everything is conscious and emotional. I think it would be an improvement on the world we currently have. Any thoughts?" — 3017amen

Non-living matter is not conscious or emotional in the senses we normally use for those words. For that reason, I don't know what it means to attribute consciousness or emotion to something that is not alive. Consciousness and emotion are behavioral characteristics. I don't think rocks are self-aware. What behavioral evidence shows they are.

My own interpretation was basic intentionality ala Schop's the World as W&R/metaphysical will. Or, in my studies, something like what theoretical physicist Paul Davies has mentioned-Panentheism... . — 3017amen

I'll go back to what I wrote in my earlier post. I think the universe is human in a fundamental way. That's not pantheism. What is it?

As an aside, I think these natural impulses of wonderment in itself (coming from our stream of consciousness), are consistent with other intrinsic or innate abstract apperceptions about how the world works (abstract mathematical structures) which we find useful. — 3017amen

Not sure what you're saying. If you are saying that equations can be beautiful in the same way apple blossoms are....I'm not sure what that means.

How it doesnt count as proelytis which is forbidden I cannot tell. Its the same thing over and over with the only discussion offered is a tactic so he can whine about life. — DingoJones

I was just teasing S1. I don't get involved with antinatalist discussions much anymore. I've laid out my arguments, S1 and his friends have laid out theirs, and no one has been convinced.

I don't see what he does as proselytization. He just makes his philosophical point over and over. He's not promoting any ideology, organization, or business.

There is another physicalism discussion open on the thread right now.

Let's say I am Willy Wonka.. — schopenhauer1

Thank god, Willy Wonka. At least it's not another antinatalism discussion.

I was watching my cat ignore its shadow today and got to thinking: they must be aware of their own shadows on some level, otherwise they would be freaking out about this black thing on the ground right next to them that's always moving around. This would apply to insects too, I guess. So, what's going on? Do their minds categorize shadows as "uninteresting"? But some shadows are very interesting (e.g., the shadow of a hunter stalking you). — RogueAI

I don't normally notice my shadow, but I wouldn't say I'm ignoring it. How is what your cat was doing different from that?

Questions to explore:

1. Can the nature of the curious mind be explained throughout history relative to sociology (norms, beliefs, rituals, practices)?
2. Does curiosity in itself confer any biological advantages?
3. Can Religion offer any pathway to understanding the nature of reality and the phenomena of the experiences associated with self-awareness/consciousness?
4. Can cognitive science study the Religious experience in order to gain insight on the phenomenon of the conscious mind (what is self-awareness)? — 3017amen

My responses in italics:

1. Can the nature of the curious mind be explained throughout history relative to sociology (norms, beliefs, rituals, practices)? I don't have anything to offer here.

2. Does curiosity in itself confer any biological advantages? Curiosity is does not seem to be just a human motivator. I heard somewhere that cats are curious too. It has always seemed to me to be a very good strategy for living in a world where things can change quickly. Knowing what's going on around you is important when you might have to make a decision immediately. That's my intuition. I don't have any specific knowledge. Generally, I am reluctant to jump to conclusions about what behaviors are built in and which are learned.

3. Can Religion offer any pathway to understanding the nature of reality and the phenomena of the experiences associated with self-awareness/consciousness? What we call "reality" is a function of the outside world, but also of human biology, nervous system, psychology, etc. What that means to me is that reality is human in a fundamental way. Religion recognizes that while "rational" approaches don't.

4. Can cognitive science study the Religious experience in order to gain insight on the phenomenon of the conscious mind (what is self-awareness)? I don't think religious experience is any different from other everyday experience.

You are forcing the obvious and passe into a discussion. — god must be atheist

3017amen - Don't listen to gmba - Your questions were reasonable.

Where does it say that in the article? — Marty

Here's another link, to an article in the Harvard Business Review - "Decisions and Desire:"

https://hbr.org/2006/01/decisions-and-desire

Here's some text from the article:

Damasio and his colleagues have since studied over 50 patients with brain damage like Elliot’s who share this combination of emotional and decision-making defects. And researchers have found that patients with injuries to parts of the limbic system, an ancient group of brain structures important in generating emotions, also struggle with making decisions. There’s something critical to decision making in the conversation between emotion and reason in the brain, but what?

Call it gut. Or hunch. Or, more precisely, “prehunch,” to use Damasio’s term. In a famous series of experiments designed by Damasio’s colleague Antoine Bechara at the University of Iowa, patients with Elliot’s emotion-dampening type of brain damage were found to be unusually slow to detect a losing proposition in a card game.

In the game, players picked cards from red and blue decks, winning and losing play money with each pick. The players were hooked up to lie-detector-like devices that measure skin conductance response, or CSR, which climbs as your stress increases and your palms sweat. Most players get a feeling that there’s something amiss with the red decks after they turn over about 50 cards, and after 30 more cards, they can explain exactly what’s wrong. But just ten cards into the game, their palms begin sweating when they reach for the red decks. Part of their brains know the red deck is a bad bet, and they begin to avoid it—even though they won’t consciously recognize the problem for another 40 cards and won’t be able to explain it until 30 cards after that. Long before they have a hunch about the red deck, a subconscious prehunch warns them away from it.

Though the brain-damaged patients eventually figured out that the red decks were rigged against them, they never developed palm-dampening CSRs. And, even though they consciously knew better, they continued to pick red cards. What were they missing? The injured parts of their brains in the prefrontal cortex seemed unable to process the emotional signals that guide decision making. Without this emotion interpreter pushing them in the right direction (toward the winning decks), these patients were left spinning their wheels, unable to act on what they knew. They couldn’t decide, apparently, what was in their own best interest. You could say they lacked good judgment.