About Consciousness

[Grayson Campell]

Hello.

I came from another account, but I forgot my username and password, and I changed to another Gmail since. I want to say that this is philosophy, so I put it in philosophy. Anyways, I have a distinguished opinion on the state of awareness (I will say awareness instead of consciousness because I type so fast that I mess up words and this is one of those words that is really easy to mess up). Awareness is a man-made construct. My thought is that the human brain is a machine, just like a steam engine or computer, except it is really complex. We don't know everything about it, but what we do know is that it is a physical object that follows physical properties. Now, some people would start talking about their vision of what quantum mechanics is and say that the brain operates on quantum effects. I used to think this would explain a lot of things, but I am thinking that it probably does not explain anything. When you think of it, there are millions of other explanations for awareness, and I am going to tell you my favorite one.

Awareness is not a thing, and we actually don't have a choice on what we do. Let me explain this by using as much science as I can. Everything you do is based on either instinct or experience, nature or nurture. Why did you click on this post? You probably thought it was interesting. Why did you think it was interesting? You have probably had some kind of interaction with philosophy. Why did you have an interaction with philosophy. Because somebody told you that you would like it. Why did the person tell you that? They liked philosophy. Rinse and repeat a few times, we get all the way to Plato. Why did Plato like philosophy? I would take the time to read the Wikipedia article about him, but I am sure that he did it for some reason. 

That is experience, or nurture. We can explain some other things with nurture too. Why did you watch a scary movie last night? According to philosophy, humans are always looking for arousal, or stimulation. This is something you are born with. Why did you have nightmares about that scary movie? Fear is the strongest emotion according to human philosophy, meaning that you had strong emotions about the movie. Why were you scared of the movie. Whether the movie was about a giant monster or something like that, it triggered something in you to be afraid of. 

See what I am saying? Everything you did was because of instinct and experience, nature or nurture, all that stuff. Awareness is making choices for yourself, and do you think you were making the choices for yourself in the examples I showed you? No, it was either nature or nurture. This is why my opinion on awareness is that we don't have it at all.

I am open to any criticism, and if you want to say anything, reply to this topic. Thank you very much for reading this.

[zapatos]

I understand why you think every action is taken due to instinct or experience, but do you have any evidence that this is the case?

[Genady]

2 hours ago, Grayson Campell said:

I came from another account, but I forgot my username and password

@grayson, right?

[Grayson Campell]

19 hours ago, Genady said:

@grayson, right?

Yah, that is the account.

19 hours ago, zapatos said:

I understand why you think every action is taken due to instinct or experience, but do you have any evidence that this is the case?

Actually, I don't. I just can't think of anything that is not the case. That is why I put emphasis on opinion. Thank you for reading my post, and have a great day.

[zapatos]

If I was trying to decide whether or not to respond to your OP, I could have decided to flip a coin and let the results of the flip decide for me. Now the decision to flip may have been due to instinct or experience, but the action of actually responding or not would have been left to chance. Hence, not every action is due to instinct or experience.

[DavidWahl]

I agree. I had a somewhat similar opinion about consciousness. I think it's a "phenomenological illusion", it feels real by human experience but it could or could not be an objective thing at all. We're all trying so hard to come up with a proper definition of consciousness which can be both scientific and universally agreed upon. Right now there's no such definition and the current philosophical definition is the "awareness of one's existence". And if consciousness does exists, more questions can be asked like:

What are the common/fundamental characteristics/components of all conscious beings? 

With the rise of AI, how can you tell the difference between a system that is actually conscious and a system that appears/pretends to be conscious? 
 

Edited July 24 by DavidWahl

[TheVat]

21 minutes ago, DavidWahl said:

I agree. I had a somewhat similar opinion about consciousness. I think it's a "phenomenological illusion", it feels real by human experience but it could or could not be an objective thing at all.

While I agree that consciousness may not be a thing, perhaps rather it is a collective term for dynamic processes, I don't see how it can be a phenomenological illusion, a phrase that contains a fatal contradiction.  We can certainly be conscious of something that is not real and an illusion, but the mere fact that we are conscious of the illusion points to a subjective experience that is undeniable.  The semantic content of "illusion" is that it is something that is presented to a conscious mind.  Without consciousness, without that particular experience that we have of our thoughts being about something, there would also be no illusion.  Zombies, e.g., would not have illusions.  (philosophical zombies, btw, are an extremely useful philosophic concept in exporing this topic -  I recommend the writings of David Chalmers on the concept)  If a zombie said, I am seeing an illusion, it would be just as false as the zombie saying, I am a conscious being.  I know what it is like to see the color red!   

On 6/6/2024 at 1:13 PM, Grayson Campell said:

Awareness is not a thing, and we actually don't have a choice on what we do.

Free will is not a necessary condition for awareness.  A thermostat has no choice on what it does, and is also a simple circuit that is generally presumed not to be conscious and lacks the features of a mind.  (I won't drag panpsychism into this)  A prisoner might have no choice on where he is going to spend his evening, but that does not mean that he is not conscious of his lack of choice.  A tiger might not have a choice on attacking a slow-moving zebra, but that doesn't mean it will not experience a subjective state of enjoying having it for dinner, and may be highly aware of how tasty and satisfying the zebra is.  

[Sensei]

16 minutes ago, TheVat said:

A tiger might not have a choice on attacking a slow-moving zebra, but that doesn't mean it will not experience a subjective state of enjoying having it for dinner, and may be highly aware of how tasty and satisfying the zebra is.  

Except that the zebra lives in southern and eastern Africa, and the tiger in Asia..

 

 

[joigus]

1 minute ago, Sensei said:

Except that the zebra lives in southern and eastern Africa, and the tiger in Asia..

Let's assume the tiger escaped from a zoo in Johannesburg...  

[DavidWahl]

14 hours ago, TheVat said:

While I agree that consciousness may not be a thing, perhaps rather it is a collective term for dynamic processes, I don't see how it can be a phenomenological illusion, a phrase that contains a fatal contradiction.  

I knew that just throwing the term in as if it is of no importance is going to be catastrophic. I don't necessarily agree that the phrase itself is contradictory in nature. I should have been more specific in terms of how I defined the phrase. A phenomenological illusion refers to a type of experience where there is a discrepancy between how things appear in our consciousness and how they actually are in reality, e. g., mirage, hallucinations etc. It recognizes the reality of the subjective experience of the illusion. In essence, a phenomenological illusion is an experience where what appears in consciousness does not align with external reality, but the experience itself is undeniably real to the subject. The only controversial thing about my statement is the claim that consciousness itself is a phenomenological illusion because the very concept of an illusion presupposes a conscious experiencer. It does presents a paradox that challenges the coherence of the notion itself. Phenomenology, with its emphasis on the reality of subjective experience, generally rejects the idea that consciousness could be an illusion and treats consciousness as if it objectively exists. 

Edited July 25 by DavidWahl

[dimreepr]

18 hours ago, DavidWahl said:

What are the common/fundamental characteristics/components of all conscious beings? 

With the rise of AI, how can you tell the difference between a system that is actually conscious and a system that appears/pretends to be conscious? 

Ask a dog, suppose you're Dr Doolittle and you can talk dog (without anthropomorphising), do you think you'll understand what it is to be a dog, without being able to lick your own genital's, or sniff the difference between a bitch and a dog etc.?

While we understand how AI work's, we can discern the output as a product of the process.

The common/fundamental characteristics/components of all consciousness, is that we humans can communicate what it's like to be a conscious human, with other conscious human's.

You need to refine your question, being careful not to conflate consciousness with intelligence...