Re: Global Consciousness - more than metaphor

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hugh Trenchard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 3:02 AM
Subject: Re: Global Consciousness - more than metaphor


> Thanks Bill.  You've noted the futility of defining consciousness.
> Brighter minds than mine have proposed ways out of this futility,
> obviously without complete success.  However, that doesn't stop
> me from flogging my own proposition!
>
> It seems to me we can objectify "consciousness" by saying that it is a
> process that
> occurs on a continuum as I've suggested in my draft paper (as have
others).
> Margaret does not agree that consciousness can exist by degree.
> This begs the age old question, where is the cut-off then?
> Is a monkey conscious? A bird, an ant?  Are we conscious we sleep?
> I think many would say we are not conscious when we sleep, implying
> consciousnesss is a function of perceptual awareness.  Obviously, these
> questions
> have been discussed over and over, and my point here is
> that if we look at the root processes which somehow (obviously we're
> not yet sure how) give rise to consciousness (which we're not even
> sure what it is), then we see that these processes involve the interaction
> of neurons.  That much, I think, most non-dualists can agree on.  But if
> we look further at what is happening with these interactions we see that
> they can be described by rules and mathematics.  The rules may be very
> simple,
> giving rise to complex processes.  The point I made in my paper is
> that if we look at the rules themselves we may find they apply to
> other systems of interacting components.  The problem with the human
> brain (if I might put it that way) is that it is so complex, that it is
easy
> to
> think there is something special about it that distinguishes it from other
> systems.
> Well, there is something special about it, and that is that it is a closed
> system
> of extraordinarily complex interactivity -- but not all that special,
> because
> this only separates it from other systems of interacting components by
> degree, not in principle.
>
> Hence, to finish up for the moment, it is not athropomorphising at all to
> say that other
> systems can and ought to be analysed at the level of their "rules" or the
> description
> of their component's interactivity.  If we view systems this way, we
> objectify
> consciousness as a broad process, and we acknowledge that human
> consciousness is not somehow exclusive, it is just farther to the right of
> the continuum of the overall complexity of interactions which underly it.
>
>
RKS:
The definition of consciousness is allusive, but definitions can be
meaningfully grouped.

There are working definitions of consciousness for each of the disciplines
making use of the concept. In medicine, for instance, it is
important to contrast 'consciousness' with other states such as
coma (especially partial coma where a patient may appear to be awake but is
not lucid), catatonia, asleep, unconsciousness, brain death etc.

A definition of consciousness, then, may look like this:-
"the state of being conscious; responsiveness of the mind to impressions
made by the senses, so that there is external awareness" [1]

A definition as the above establishes clearly whether an individual is in a
state of consciousness or some other state, eg a partial coma.

We might term that definition as the physical, and the physical definition
provides the substrate upon which other definitions may be built.

The next layer of definition considers "access"  and "phenomenal"
consciousness (see, for instance,  Ned Block).  Access consciousness refers
to consciousness that is singular and commonly accessible to all cognitive
processes.

There are examples of animals that show little or no access consciousness.
There is a restricting snake that must independently discover the prey it
has just killed as the hunting and killing part of the brain and the feeding
parts are not cognitively connected.

A particular spider may drop its prey on approach to its burrow, proceed to
the burrow and remove a stone from the entrance, then return to get the prey
and proceed to its burrow where the food may be consumed.

But if an experimenter replaces the stone after the spider has moved it,
then upon picking up the prey and facing the burrow the spider will see the
stone in place, drop the prey and repeat the process. If this is continued,
the spider will eventually starve to death, even though it is constantly
picking up the prey which could be consumed or could simply go and dig a
burrow elsewhere (or bite the experimenter :)

We can also consider Access consciousness to be 'objectively' observable,
unlike 'phenomenal' consciousness which is only indirectly observable if at
all (excluding the observers own experience).  This is the experience of
consciousness as in the "redness of the rose", that "alive" feeling and so
on.  It is not always clear to which category some conscious experience
belongs.  Awareness of the self is seen as an indication of phenomenal
consciousness, and may be an indicator of which animals have an inner
experience something like ours (phenomenally conscious) and which animals
merely have a well organised brain (access consciousness only).

Where there are both forms of consciousness, then access consciousness
probably sits from just below conscious to very subconscious relative to
phenomenal consciousness.  Therefore in blindsight, for instance, a person
can be observed to be aware of the stimulus (as the correct response
subsequently occurs) even though phenomenally, there is no awareness.
Access is not extending to phenomenal consciousness.

On the next layer of definition we consider what consciousness is a manifold
of or emergent from.  We try to identify those brain activities that
correspond to observable responses or phenomenal experience.  We are, in
essence, attempting to sum all of those brain modules, cognitive processes,
algorithms or whatever, that can be drawn under the umbrella of
consciousness, whether phenomenal, access, or the physical substrate (eg the
effect of the reticular formation on the 'state' of consciousness).

The final layer of definition considers consciousness as a thing unto itself
and tries to understand its essential nature.  This crosses over to dualism
(that consciousness 'manifests' via a physical substrate but is not bound to
it) and religious and spiritual concerns.  Consciousness considered as a
thing is identified by finding emergent qualities (and therefore frees the
concept from the substrate or manifestation via which it is observed).

This final layer will identify consciousness not by contrasting it with
other processes or identifying its manifold and defining it via its
components, but is identified and defined by its appearance as observed or
experienced only.  In Buddhist meditation, for instance, one tries to
embrace a consciousness which is clearly separate from mundane consciousness
(ie consciousness associated with "thinking", "perceiving" or the
preparation
for future action eg "planning").

Thus the last category can be contrasted with the previous by whether one is
searching for the manifold from which consciousness arrises or properties of
consciousness which are entirely emergent (thus not a manifold of anything
physical or identifiable).

No doubt consciousness, in the fullness of the concept, encompasses all four
levels.  But we note that medicine is most concerned with the first,
cognitive science with the third, philosophy with the second and to a lesser
extent the fourth, and religious philosophy and much of the public in the
fourth.

In sum, consciousness definitions are:-
1: physical; contrasted with non-conscious or unconscious states;
2: dualities of objective-subjective and phenomenal-access consciousness;
3: identification and binding of the components of the phenomena - its
manifold;
4: the essential experiential component beyond the above three.

It is noteworthy that proponents of any one of the above levels of
definition usually deny the existence, the scientific perspicacity or
relevance of the other three :(

Kind Regards,
Robert Karl Stonjek.

[1] Suandes Dictionary & Encylopedia of Laboritory Medicine and Technology