lowest level of consciousness

[Peels]

What is the lowest level of consciousness possible?

[Bluenoise]

What is consciousness?

[rakuenso]

viruses? DNA? Atoms?

[NMajik]

I believe he means something like being asleep or comatose, or possibly in a state of hypnosis (I don't buy it).

I don't know the answer, I'm just hoping to clarify.

[Peels]

viruses? DNA? Atoms? --- Are they conscious at all?

 

I am really confused about the definition of consciousness while I google around about this topic.

[Bluenoise]

There isn't a set definition of consciousness, so trying to quantify it is nearly impossible.

 

How can you quantify something you can't define?

[VikingF]

There isn't a set definition of consciousness' date=' so trying to quantify it is nearly impossible.

 

How can you quantify something you can't define?[/quote']

 

 

Consciousness is a quality that makes an object aware of its own existence.

 

For instance: I am a human. I know that I exist because I have consciousness (= am conscious).

 

Isn't that a definition we can use?

[Royston]

Consciousness is a quality that makes an object aware of its own existence.

 

For instance: I am a human. I know that I exist because I have consciousness (= am conscious).

 

Isn't that a definition we can use?

 

That's one definition, though that'll be implying that any lifeform that isn't 'self aware' might as well be unconcious (for want of a better word.) but I think you get my point.

 

I think there are levels of consciouness experienced by different life forms, ours just happens to be more intense...probably a lot to do with the way we communicate et.c It's an ongoing philosophical debate, and is really what metaphysics has become...the study of 'being'.

 

Though it seems a lot of people think metaphysics is just another term for pseudoscience...it's not.

 

Going back to topic...I think you need to reiterate your question, in what respect are you talking about the lowest level of consciousness.

[Daecon]

I define conciousness as being the ability to use your own judgement to react to the situation.

 

By "your own" I mean the lifeform in question, be it a person, a cat, a horse, etc...

 

Do fish display qualities that suggest they decide on a course of action to take, when presented with more than once choice?

[V-Man]

death

 

"I think, therefore I am"

or

"I think, therefore I think I am"

?

[x__heavenly__x]

The lowest level achieved by some people including, sigmon freud(not compleatly cuz he was afraid) is the level of silence, to more abt it read the 50,000 pages of age old hindu mythology and how to atain the lowest level of consc.

[bascule]

In Consciousness Explained, Dennett defined this as an "orienting mechanism," a kind of "all hands on deck" stimulus => response reaction which would cause several different parts of a ganglion/brain to analyze the stimulus and collectively dictate a flexible response in a pandemonic manner.

 

Of course, I could be interpreting your question wrong. Does "lowest level" mean "most primitive"? That was my interpretation...

[iglak]

probably to be born without a brain, but with the spinal cord and brain stem intact.

 

or maybe death before prenounced brain-dead.

 

 

 

this is just speculation though.

[Peels]

probably to be born without a brain, but with the spinal cord and brain stem intact.

A person without cortex, I think, will be in a coma state.

[Cognition]

I don't think there are levels of consciousness: you are either conscious or you are not. And being aware is not very helpful.....I can say that my thermostat is aware of the temperature in my room and it acts sensibly to changes in the temperature, but is it conscious? Dennett would say it is indeed a kind of consciousness, but I do not agree with that. I once asked him if he could agree with me that reverberations in the brain (or in neural networks) could be a prerequisite for C. and he agreed. I do think that dogs and monkeys may be consciousness also, although I can never prove it, but I have really no idea if it is any different (qualitatively) than ours.

[Glider]

There are levels of consciousness. It's not as simple as counscious or not conscious. There have been demonstrations of learning under general anaesthesia for example.

 

Hospitals use instruments such the Glasgow Coma Scale to assess level of consciousness. The problem in most cases is the lack of correspondence between responsiveness and awareness, insofar as lack of response does not mean unaware. This is why staff are encouraged to talk to unconscious patients; tell them what's going on, what they (the staff) are doing to them and why etc. They are also discouraged from saying things they would not say in front of 'conscious' patients.

 

A problem in such threads as this though is definition. What do people here mean by 'conscious', self aware (as in the above thread), or responsive to stimuli or any state between the two?

 

In humans, the default state is self-aware. A thermostat was never aware, either of itself, nor of the concept of temperature. The flexion of a bimetal strip cannot be said by any means to represent a conscious response to incresing temperature, any more than the expansion of a stone in the sun.

 

If you relate consciousness and awareness, then humans have many levels of consciousness in normal life. People asleep are less aware, but not completely unaware of their surroundings, otherwise nothing external could wake them. People absorbed in a book are less aware of their immediate surroundings too, less unaware than people asleep, but more than people not absorbed in a task.

 

problems occur when people are outside of the normal range of cosnciousness due to physical trauma, ilness, anaesthesia and so-on, because outside of the normal range, the generally accepted link between consciousness and awareness as signalled by responsiveness (which works for all practical purposes), breaks down and becomes a dangerous assumption.

 

The basic rule is that one cannot know. I know I am conscious, but I cannot know whether another person is. I make an assumption based upon their responses (or lack thereof). As I say, in daily life, these assumptions serve, but still, they are only assumptions and they do break down in clinical situations.

 

The same issues exist in the treatment of pain. You cannot know the pain of another, you can only make assumptions based upon their behaviour (which includes self-report). Usually, this is no problem, but it gets tricky in clinical situation when the prescription of effective narcotic analgesia depends upon a relatively accurate assessment.

[Cognition]

For me conscioussness is not the same as responsiveness, or at all repsonsiveness. A thermostat is also responsive and I don't wanna see that as even the tiniest bit of consciousness. For me conscioussness is only qualia. And that is why I said: you either have it or you don't. And the fact that you are bringing learning into the discussion is not very persuasive either: I can make a neural network that is not at all complex and that learns quite well (ofcourse not in the intricate ways humans do, but we as cognitive scientist think that we are going in the right direction). But it is not consciouss. What I am trying to say is that some other people see things as thinking or memory as prerequisites of consciousness. Or perhaps even responsiveness. And perhaps they are. I can not prove or disprove that. But You are talking about responsiveness and conscioussness in the same context and you are not making it very clear either what YOU mean by consciousness. I have spent years reading about consciousness, because it is a very interesting subject ofcourse. But I concluded for myself that the only thing that is still very problematic with it is the subjective properties of it, that are unlike any physical properties we (or at least I) have ever seen, and that is also why it is so extremely difficult to say anything about consciousness. I think that without the subjective aspect (which I call consciousness) we could still be responsive, we could still learn, remember, think (and here I might get very fierce reactions, because for everyone thinking is so closely associated with conscioussness), etc... I think there are no levels of conscioussness because I don't ever experienced it, and the only consciousness that exists is mine. Not yours, not even my mother or my children that tell me they are consciouss. I just cannot prove that.

[Glider]

For me conscioussness is not the same as responsiveness, or at all repsonsiveness. A thermostat is also responsive and I don't wanna see that as even the tiniest bit of consciousness.

Nobody is asking you to. "A thermostat was never aware, either of itself, nor of the concept of temperature. The flexion of a bimetal strip cannot be said by any means to represent a conscious response to increasing temperature, any more than the expansion of a stone in the sun."

 

For me conscioussness is only qualia. And that is why I said: you either have it or you don't.

Except that there are degrees and levels of consciousness.

 

And the fact that you are bringing learning into the discussion is not very persuasive either: I can make a neural network that is not at all complex and that learns quite well (ofcourse not in the intricate ways humans do, but we as cognitive scientist think that we are going in the right direction). But it is not consciouss.

Well, I'm not trying to persuade you of anything.

 

What I am trying to say is that some other people see things as thinking or memory as prerequisites of consciousness. Or perhaps even responsiveness. And perhaps they are. I can not prove or disprove that. But You are talking about responsiveness and conscioussness in the same context and you are not making it very clear either what YOU mean by consciousness.

That's because, as I said, there are problems with most definitions of consciousness. The main problem is its subjectivity which means that definitions often contain descriptions of correlates, such as responsivity or EEG activity. Self awareness is a facet of consciousness, but it too is one of those pesky subjective things in that we know it only in ourselves.

 

I have spent years reading about consciousness, because it is a very interesting subject ofcourse. But I concluded for myself that the only thing that is still very problematic with it is the subjective properties of it, that are unlike any physical properties we (or at least I) have ever seen, and that is also why it is so extremely difficult to say anything about consciousness.

True, but nonetheless, for many reasons we need a working definition. The best we can do is work with the least flawed, or at least, the most reliable one we can generate.

 

I think that without the subjective aspect (which I call consciousness) we could still be responsive, we could still learn, remember, think (and here I might get very fierce reactions, because for everyone thinking is so closely associated with conscioussness), etc... I think there are no levels of conscioussness because I don't ever experienced it...,

You sleep, don't you? You cease to be consciously aware of your surroundings, yet your mind still works, albeit on a different level of consciousness.

 

...and the only consciousness that exists is mine. Not yours, not even my mother or my children that tell me they are consciouss. I just cannot prove that.

Just as they cannot prove your consciousness. But that is what I said; consciousness is entirely subjective. We can know it in ourselves, but only infer it in others. Where this is necessary (e.g. in clinical situations), we do so by using observable corrolates, such as responsivity to stimuli, measures of awareness of the environment, measures of cognitive function etc.. These are not direct measures of consciousness, but as a rule, these functions don't occur without it.

[Cognition]

Except that there are degrees and levels of consciousness.

 

No, there are no levels of consciousness. Give me one good link where levels of consciousness are proven. Then I believe you. As I said: I experience no levels, so there are no levels. I am not saying this to be arrogant, but it shows the trouble with what is said. I think Consciousness is only Qualia and that is why we can never say that there are levels. C is subjective and therefore the only definition can be a subjective one. If I feel there are no levels, then there are no levels

 

That's because, as I said, there are problems with most definitions of consciousness. The main problem is its subjectivity which means that definitions often contain descriptions of correlates, such as responsivity or EEG activity.

 

No, there is an inconsequence in your reasoning. If part of consciousness (or a lower level) is responsivity, or if that is how C. is defined, then we can easily see why that must be wrong: a thermostat is responsive and no sane human being would say it is Conscious, or intentional, as we think we are (well, I think Dennett would, but there is his only mistake: in trying to be a physicalist so hard, he thinks he must take this "stance".... )

 

 

True, but nonetheless, for many reasons we need a working definition. The best we can do is work with the least flawed, or at least, the most reliable one we can generate.

 

Yes, and that is what I am trying to argue. We can Qualia as a fundamental given (like gravity in physics), and work on cognition as we do already, trying to find out the way the brain thinks, memorizes, categorizes, etc. Then we can use this "stance" to give most of what is thought to be (part of) consciousness a good scientific explanation and admit that qualia have subjective properties which can not be explained physicalistically (yet). And then (almost) everyone will have a reasonable answer to everything: the best we can give with our current knowledge.

 

You sleep, don't you? You cease to be consciously aware of your surroundings, yet your mind still works, albeit on a different level of consciousness.

 

Yes, I sleep, but i don't feel as if my subjective experiences change. My body is going into sleep-mode, but during dreaming my experience of my dreams is no different then my experience of my thinking and my memories during waking hours...

 

Just as they cannot prove your consciousness. But that is what I said; consciousness is entirely subjective. We can know it in ourselves, but only infer it in others. Where this is necessary (e.g. in clinical situations), we do so by using observable corrolates, such as responsivity to stimuli, measures of awareness of the environment, measures of cognitive function etc.. These are not direct measures of consciousness, but as a rule, these functions don't occur without it.

 

Sure, I will admit that these functions are there most of the time when a human being is conscious, but what can they really tell about the difference in level of C.? I think nothing. I may be less responsive when I am asleep, but that is no reason to assume that my subjective experiences change also dramatically...

[Glider]

No, there are no levels of consciousness. Give me one good link where levels of consciousness are proven. Then I believe you.

Nothing is ever 'proven', especially when we are dealing with a subjective experience.

As I said: I experience no levels, so there are no levels. I am not saying this to be arrogant, but it shows the trouble with what is said. I think Consciousness is only Qualia and that is why we can never say that there are levels. C is subjective and therefore the only definition can be a subjective one. If I feel there are no levels, then there are no levels.

I take your point. And if this were a purely epistemological area I would agree with you. However, there is a huge clinical overlap where levels of consciousness, or assessment thereof, is critical to tratment and outcome.

 

There are objectively observable differences in the correlates of consciousness; awareness, responsivity, cognitive cohesion, cognitive ability and so-on. Whilst you are quite right when you say these may not relate to subjective experience so, if a person feels there are no levels, then there are no levels, you would have to reconcile this with, for example, a patient with Alzheimer's coming into a period of lucidity who then shows distress at the realisation of what they're losing. There are states in which an individual is at a lower level of consciousness, but retains sufficient functionality to realise it.

 

No, there is an inconsequence in your reasoning. If part of consciousness (or a lower level) is responsivity, or if that is how C. is defined, then we can easily see why that must be wrong: a thermostat is responsive and no sane human being would say it is Conscious, or intentional, as we think we are (well, I think Dennett would, but there is his only mistake: in trying to be a physicalist so hard, he thinks he must take this "stance".... )

Well, as I have said (twice) "A thermostat was never aware, either of itself, nor of the concept of temperature. The flexion of a bimetal strip cannot be said by any means to represent a conscious response to increasing temperature, any more than the expansion of a stone in the sun.". Responsivity is only an observable correlate of consciousness, it is not in and of itself consciousness, nor is it an acceptable definition of consciousness.

 

Yes, and that is what I am trying to argue. We can Qualia as a fundamental given (like gravity in physics), and work on cognition as we do already, trying to find out the way the brain thinks, memorizes, categorizes, etc. Then we can use this "stance" to give most of what is thought to be (part of) consciousness a good scientific explanation and admit that qualia have subjective properties which can not be explained physicalistically (yet). And then (almost) everyone will have a reasonable answer to everything: the best we can give with our current knowledge.

I think this is where our respective arguments begin to come together

 

Yes, I sleep, but i don't feel as if my subjective experiences change. My body is going into sleep-mode, but during dreaming my experience of my dreams is no different then my experience of my thinking and my memories during waking hours...

I see your point, but then this is where the difference between objective observation and subjective experience conflict. Subjectively it will always be the case that reality is what you percieve it to be. Objective observation would show that your level of consciousness it very different to that of your waking state.

 

This is exactly the same problem as exists in pain management. Hospitals work to the philosophy that "The patient's pain is what they say it is", simply because, as with consciousness, nobody can ever know the pain of another. We can make inferences based on observations of pain correlates; antalgic gait, shielding, grimacing, verbal report etc., but none of these are pain. Pain has no physiological indices and is purely subjective. As with consciousness, there are different levels of pain. In this case, although only the sufferer is aware of the different levels, they can report changes.

 

Nonetheless, as with our discussion of consciousness, we can debate the nature of pain on an epistemological level for ever, but it doesn't help the sufferer. Reality requires that we make best use of flawed measures of pain correlates in order to manage pain effectively.

 

Sure, I will admit that these functions are there most of the time when a human being is conscious, but what can they really tell about the difference in level of C.? I think nothing. I may be less responsive when I am asleep, but that is no reason to assume that my subjective experiences change also dramatically...

Again, I take your point. The difference between objective observation and subjective experience will always exist.

 

However, as I say, there are cases where a person retains awareness of another level of consciousness. In cases where a healthy and bright individual suffers some physical trauma resulting in lowered levels of conciousness, the objective signs of which are (for example) impaired cognition and responsivity, i.e. the person cannot perform simple calculations, does not know who the prime minister is, cannot remember the date etc., it is not unusual to see such a person presented with a simple test question (e.g. a basic addition calculation) respond (albeit very slowly) with "I should know this...why can't I do this?".

 

This suggests that on some level, despite their subjective experience being all there is for them, they retain some knowledge of their previous state or abilities. It is not unusual for such individuals to become quite distressed at the differences they can perceive between their current 'lowered' state of consciousness and their 'normal' level.

[Cognition]

I agree with you that when in a clinical setting the correlates of consciousness can give a workable construct, then you should use it. Conscioussness is part of cognition and since I am a cognitive scientist, I have always been interested in consciousness, but I never did any real research in that field. I am reading a lot about in and I know the work of Dennett, Eccles, Penfield, McGinn, and ofcourse Searle. When Searle speaks about Intentionality, I can not get away from the strong intuition that he is speaking about consciousness, and we see that in these last years consciousness is more in his attentional spotlight

[Red_Ninja]

I have read some of Dennett's material on the subject, most recently 'consciousness explained' - and I've found that regardless of whether you agree with him or not his points are incredibly hard to argue against. The man himself would probably object his views truncated in the manner they are on here; but nonetheless it seems to boil down to a few points;

 

Phenomenology - i.e. a subject's experience. Cannot be taken as what is really happening.

 

Heterophenomenology - the only way to use a subject's experience scientifically. Regard any report or verbal utterance made by a subject as an 'author's fiction' i.e. yes, we believe that you believe. But 'we' don't necessarily believe what you believe.

 

Heterophenomenology may be a limitation of science - in that we cannot directly experience what another experiences. But it leaves us with a terrible hole, albeit one that we cannot conceive of any way of filling.

 

We're left with the conclusion that consciousness itself is a combination of a massive number of simultaneously running sub-systems in the brain. It is, in Dennett's eyes, a gigantic meme-complex, running a sort of virtual von-neumann machine (i.e. a serial computer) on massively parallel hardware that was not really designed with the task in mind.

 

I've noticed some (or at least one) of you on here have spoken with Dennett - something I would really like an opportunity to do. One thing in particular that I think he's left out, along with researchers in other sciences (such as cosmology) is Chaos, or Dynamical Systems theory. Something about how the brain works is BOUND to involve Chaos. I just feel this instinctively (because pretty much ANY complex system involves Chaos, and there are very few things we know of that are as complex as the brain).

[yammers]

What is the lowest level of consciousness possible?

 

Not that I would discredit any of the arguments in the above posts, but to sort of answer the original question, the lowest level of consciousness is a GCS of 4 out of 15. It is called the Glasgow Coma Score, and it is used in emergency medicine as a rough guide to determining "Level of Consciousness", and an associated brain injury. The score is determined from responses by a patient in eye (sight) response (4), verbal (hearing) response(5), and motor (touch) response(6). Various levels of consciousness will produce different scores; brain dead would be 1+1+1=3 or no response + no response +no response and the opposite being as you are reading this post your eyes are open, you can carry on conversation, and you can type text on command, or 4, 5, 6=15. So, a gcs of 4, which I believe is only possible in this format 1+1+2, would be the lowest level of consciousness.

 

From my point of view, this seems pretty good...Perhaps one could introduce taste and smell to fine tune the higher end of the score.

 

Is there more to consciousness than this? Maybe... but then again, maybe not!

[Cognition]

I have read some of Dennett's material on the subject' date=' most recently 'consciousness explained' - and I've found that regardless of whether you agree with him or not his points are incredibly hard to argue against. The man himself would probably object his views truncated in the manner they are on here; but nonetheless it seems to boil down to a few points;

 

Phenomenology - i.e. a subject's experience. Cannot be taken as what is really happening. [/quote']

 

Yes, I agree. And, in fact, I agree with 99.9% of what Dennett says. But I do not agree with his view on Qualia. Qualia, subjective expereinces, are not the right subject for science, but we all know we are conscious and that qualia are the main "ingredient" of consciousness, and the way Dennett is trying to explain them "away" by saying that they are illusions is just to easy. That doesn't do justice to what we all feel and think we know so well. If you say things like that, you have to explain exactly why we are "thinking" we are conscious (even an illusion is a Quale), but I don't see anything like that in "Consciousness explained".

[Peels]

Francis Crick, in his book: The Astonishing Hypothesis, pointed out that "you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules". As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons."

 

As we know, all life forms are composed of molecules that are not themselves alive. Therefore, to define the lowest level of living life possible, there is general agreement that a localized molecular assemblage should be considered alive if it continually regenerates itself, replicates itself, and is capable of evolving. My original question of consciousness was sprung from the similar thought.

 

So, what I would like to know is that by adding which function (both necessary and sufficient), could we change a non-conscious living life to a conscious living life? For instance, in my opinion, language and self-awareness (I classify them as higher level of consciousness) are sufficient but not necessary to define consciousness.