What phenomenon is consciousness?

[Robert]

I'm curious how to classify consciousness. What to you guys think?

[Guille]

It is quite dificult to tell where we must place consciousness. For our search, it is a fundamental phenomena. But for the world I think it should not be considered fundamental. Anyway, if we want to look at it's nature, we must say: does it depend on others, or do others depend on it? For most phenomena there are both affection and causation, then we must tell which of the two is more fundamental about the nature of consciousness (for ex, is it more fundamental to the nature of consciousness that something must be alive to have it (cause), or that by having it we have self-awareness (effect)? To answer that question we must be very precise in our analysis). I'm very much wondering about the possibility of 'other'. What came to your mind to put that third option? Is there any phenomena that already has been considered as other than fundamental or emergent? If so, what phenomena and what has it been described as?

[HappytheStripper]

Well so far I am the only one who has voted .. hehe I voted "fundamental" .. because to explain the "other" would at this moment require a power of thought .. my first question is ..

"Is consciousness a phenomena .. ??"

Ashley

[mkirkpatrick]

A simple and basic answer to this question,What phenomenon is consc-
iousness,would be something like;awareness of existance,consciousness is the shadow cast by the indwelling lifefullness within?Were that the case,then you would prehaps have to say that it was basic,would you not?As I see it all
of existance is alive,and thereby exhibiting various degrees of consciousness,
from the profound lethagy of a stone,to the animated antics of a Baboon!So
then consciousness is a factor of limited and unlimited awareness,depending on your level on the evolutionary arc?


kind regards michael.

[harmonygirl]

interesting discussion, but I am not sure how to 'classify' consciousness. We had a pretty good discussion about intelligence and those classifications made sense, but talking about awareness in the sense of whether it is fundamental or not seems to log-jam my brain. It helps me if I reframe this into whether consciousness is universal. There, I can answer definitely yes! but I know that there are (many!) others that would vehemently disagree with me. I guess I would echo HtS question, is consciousness a phenomenon? (I think by framing it in that way, there is an underlying assumption that consciousness is not fundamental and therefor a 'phenomenon'...early morning ramblings...(BC-before coffee!)

[dleviwing]

What is a good test for consciousness? Try to think back to when you first became aware of your existence – How old were you? Your first memory is the beginning of the emergence of consciousness. Michael’s example is also good.

[mkirkpatrick]

What is a good test for consciousness? Try to think back to when you first became aware of your existence – How old were you? Your first memory is the beginning of the emergence of consciousness. Michael’s example is also good.

Thank you Dave I am grateful for your remarks,
it makes one feel part of something when occasionally there is agreement!

kind regards michael.

[TinyTree]

I think that conscousness needs to be defined on a per discussion basis. That is, there are many forms of consciousness, and it would help in any particular discussion to nail down the type we are all discussing together.

For example, primary consciousness is the consciousness of the self. That is to say- each individual has their own primary consciousness, and they have no way to tell if this consciousness is shared with any other human or animal. They would presume it would be a similar experience, but have no way to really know.

The self referential consciousness might be the form of consciousness which allows one to represent self as an independent entity in a mind construct, and make decisions about self as a independent object. This is to say- it is a sophisticated form of self modeling. However, most mobile animals have some decent form of self modeling. The lower stage of self modelling is simply reactive (reactively taking actions in response to the environment) but the higher stage of self modelling is proactive (taking actions in anticipation of the environments impact on self). Clearly animals take many higher stage actions- such as a dog getting excited about a specific door opening which is the food closet. Here the dog may be saying to itself- the door is open, likely food will come out, and likely I will get some food. This is a higher form of self modelling because the dog is anticipating the relationship of the environment (the food) to self (it will get to eat some)

Now if you "advance those ideas" to the notion of modelling self as a cognitive agent, within self (as a simplified version of course) then this could be considered the self referential consciousness. Not only aware of self, but aware of self as a cognitive agent, including emotions, and reactions.

Interestingly, this is very close to telling a story. If you tell a story, you incorporate other agents into a narrative. If you incorporate self into this narrative, you have reached the point of modelling self as a cognitive agent. Therefore, according to this metric, the ability to tell a story including oneself is a requisite to being a conscious entity with self referential consciousness.

Can animals tell stories? Some can- a bee can "tell a story" about how to arrive at a specific patch of clover. However this story from what we understand, is more of a set of directions, not a narrative of self, especially not a future narrative of self anticipating self reaction.

Do other animals tell stories? I can not think of any examples off the top of my head. I am not trying to exclude animals from consciousness, I am trying to comprehend what consciousness is, and why we typically think animals are not conscious.

[TinyTree]

What is a good test for consciousness? Try to think back to when you first became aware of your existence – How old were you? Your first memory is the beginning of the emergence of consciousness. Michael’s example is also good.

This is an interesting idea, although I do not particularly buy it completely. For example, if one suffers memory loss do to a traumatic event, is the existence of consciousness gone during the period in which you blanked out?
I don't think so, I think most would agree that the individual prior to the amnesia had consciousness.

Similarly, I think a small child is in the process of forming a coherent world view during the initial years of development. Thus, early memories are literally "erased" due to the reformation of the cognitive aspect. I fail to see how this is different from amnesia.

Now if you argue some other metric for a young human, we may be able to define for that metric what is, and is not, consciousness for that metric at least. However memory alone is not a compelling representation because of the aforementioned issues.

[Lloyd Gillespie]

I'm curious how to classify consciousness. What to you guys think?

Robert, we must also take in the other side of the issue, also___as Daniel Dennett has stated, "Consciousness is just a subjective illusion." I personally think consciousness is no more than brain and memory states, i.e., consciousness is like a religion___it's not needed for the mind to function___so is it real? History has shown every time we add something that's not absolutely required, we create new mythologies. I simply see consciousness as emergent brain and memory states... At the same time, I have no problem using the word to communicate with others, as it is the average accepted linguistics... Does such linguistics create our idea of consciousness...?

regards