Just what is Consciousness? (soul, biological, life, self)

[Hueffenhardt]

Originally Posted by NoCapo

Mickiel, I think I was with you until here, but then you lost me.

If I understood your previous posts, you were postulating the following things about consciousness:

1. Consciousness is a small part of our experience. Most of what we do, walking, eating, speaking, seeing, we do without much conscious thought or intervention. This is a pretty reasonable
2. Consciousness is not memory. I agree that the memory of an event is not the same as experiencing it originally, but I am not yet convinced that the ability to have and process memories is not at least related to consciousness. Maybe you can elaborate on this one?

So at this point you have established two things, but otherwise your ides of consciousness is still pretty unformed. I think you are jumping to "god-did-it" a little early in the discussion here. Would you mind if we continued to look at what it is (or is not) for a bit before we examine its origin?

If I boil down what both you and Huff seem to be saying, I come to the idea that consciousness involves both analysis of external stimuli and internal reactions. What makes conscious thought different than reaction is that we are aware of thinking about our own thoughts and reactions as well as outside stimuli (The light hitting our retina, et...). I think memory is yet another input that our conscious mind can use, at least in much greater detail than can our unconscious mind.

I agree with all of the above. The talk of god by Mickiel derails this conversation off into the bushes for there are numerous reasons which I have elaborated elsewhere in this forum why using the construct of god as an explanation creates far more problems than it solves, and there is no reason to suspect "god" is anything more than a figment of man's imagination.

Originally Posted by NoCapo

Right now I tend toward the idea that consciousness is made up of self awareness, rational thought, and empathy.

I disagree with the "rational" qualifier on thought. Much if not most of our conscious thoughts are irrational. I don't think empathy has much at all to do with what consciousness is. Psychopaths completely lack empathy, yet experience consciousness. This isn't to say that we can't become consciously aware of our empathy, but in that instance, empathy is simply the focus of our conscious attention, a mere topic passing through our conscious awareness, and is not consciousness itself.

Originally Posted by NoCapo

What distinguishes our conscious behavior from our "reactive behavior" is (1) an awareness of our own thoughts and existence, (2) the ability to form thoughts and actions into causal chains, and (3) our ability to assume or project similar behavior onto others.

(numbers added for ease of discussion)

I agree with 1 and 3. I tend to think 2 is not correct due to a number of experiments. I definitely believe that we have the illusion of 2; it seems to us like we do 2, but I tend to agree with the theorists that say our conscious thoughts do not direct our actions. Our conscious thoughts are like a movie that is played for us after our unconscious mind has already processed what it processed and set in motion what we will do. I believe free will is an illusion, and the idea that our conscious thoughts are able to weigh options and "decide" on a path to take is an illusion as well.

I am still open to changing my mind on the subject, but for right now this is where I am because I believe that this is where our early experiments into consciousness is leading us.

[Mickiel]

Originally Posted by NoCapo

Mickiel, I think I was with you until here, but then you lost me.

If I understood your previous posts, you were postulating the following things about consciousness:

1. Consciousness is a small part of our experience. Most of what we do, walking, eating, speaking, seeing, we do without much conscious thought or intervention. This is a pretty reasonable
2. Consciousness is not memory. I agree that the memory of an event is not the same as experiencing it originally, but I am not yet convinced that the ability to have and process memories is not at least related to consciousness. Maybe you can elaborate on this one?

So at this point you have established two things, but otherwise your ides of consciousness is still pretty unformed. I think you are jumping to "god-did-it" a little early in the discussion here. Would you mind if we continued to look at what it is (or is not) for a bit before we examine its origin?

Certainly, I don't mind. Sorry, refering to God is a habit of mine.


Consciousness is not necessary for concepts or for learning. Surprising as this may be, I have found it to be true. This has caused much confusion, this belief that consciousness is specifically and uniquely the place where concepts are formed. And this is a very ancient idea;

And I'll get into this a small bit later.

Consciousness is not even necessary for thinking!

I know these are very bold statements, but I will break each one down a bit more defined.

[tuteishungry]

Originally Posted by Mickiel

Seeing how Consciousness seems to be misunderstood , I thought I would go into it in a thread of its own. My approach in this thread will be different , I think we first have to start from the top , from some conception of what Consciousness is , from what our own introspection is. We have to be sure of that, before we can enter the nervous system and talk about its neurology. We must therefore try to make a new beginning by stating what Consciousness is. We have already seen that this is no easy matter, and that the history of the subject is an enormous confusion of metaphor with designation. In any such situation , where something is so resistant to even the beginnings of clarity, it is wisdom to begin by determining " What something is Not."

So I will begin by examining what Consciousness is not. And even that will be a surprise!

Conciousness is full awareness, nothingness, universe and experience all together, by just being.

[Mickiel]

We could have a serious debate concerning the relation between concepts and consciousness, yet in my view there is no necessary connection between the two. Concepts are simply classes of behaviorally equivalent things; root concepts are prior to experience. They are fundamental to the aptic structures that allow behavior to occur at all. For consciousness not only is it not the repository of concepts; it does not usually work with them at all.

When we consciously think of a tree, we are indeed conscious of a particular tree, the tree stands for a concept, and we can let a concept word stand for it. One of the great functions of language is to let a word stand for a concept, which is exactly what we do in writting or speaking about conceptual material. And we must do all this because concepts are usually not in consciousness at all!

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by Mickiel

Consciousness is not necessary for concepts or for learning. Surprising as this may be, I have found it to be true. This has caused much confusion, this belief that consciousness is specifically and uniquely the place where concepts are formed. And this is a very ancient idea;

And I'll get into this a small bit later.

Consciousness is not even necessary for thinking!

I know these are very bold statements, but I will break each one down a bit more defined.

These ideas seem to be predicated on confusion, ignorance, misidentification or disaggregation of the components of what consciousness IS phenomenologically.

[Mickiel]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

These ideas seem to be predicated on confusion, ignorance, misidentification or disaggregation of the components of what consciousness IS phenomenologically.

Ideas are disfigured by those exact same things.

[SuperSoul]

Originally Posted by Mickiel

We are conscious less of the time while we are awake than we would like to think. Remember," we cannot be conscious of when we are not conscious." Playing the piano is a good example. Here is a complex array of various tasks is accomplished all at once with scarcely any consciousness of them whatever; two different lines of near hieroglyphics to be read at once, the right hand guided to one and the left hand to the other; ten fingers assigned to various tasks, the fingering solving various motor problems without any awareness, and the mind interpiting sharps and flats and naturals into black and white keys, obeying the timing of whole or quarter or sixteenth notes and rest and trills, one hand perhaps in three beats to a measure while the other plays four, while the feet are softening or sluring or holding various other notes. And all of this time the performer, the conscious performer, is in a seventh heaven of artistic rapture at the results of all this tremendous business- most of which he does unconsciously.

He really wants to do it unconsciously; some performers can tell you that consciousness is often not only unnecessary; it can be quite undesirable! If our pianist suddenly became conscious of his fingers during a furious set of arpeggios, he would have to stop. Even professional dancers can tell you they would rather not be conscious of their every movement. A sprinter may be conscious of where he is relative to the others in the race, but he is certainly not conscious of putting one leg in front of the other; such consciousness might indeed cause him to trip.

Try speaking with a full consciousness of your articulation as you do it; you may just mess up and stop speaking.

Many things that we do we simply are not conscious of doing them. And this is one reason why I believe that its possible for a whole race of humans to have existed, who can do many of the things that we do, but yet they not even be conscious beings.

I like how you put that, Mickiel.
I play piano so I can relate. And going with that analogy... There's a balance of reason (consciousness) and intuition (subconsciousness/spirit). I need to know how to use all of my fingers to play and I need to be familiar with reading sheet music if I want to expand my repertoire. I also need to understand timing and how a piece should be played. Like Nocturne (chopin) is played "Lento con gran espressione"... whereas a jazzy piece by Scott Joplin may be played more lively. Yet, if I focus too much on theory, it would sound like "chop sticks" - lacking feeling. And also, I might miss out on those therapeutic, spiritual times when I just play and let it flow in surprising ways, as a soul-exploring experience.

Sometimes, when I've played, accompanying singers, I've been so moved by how beautiful it is, the tears in my eyes keep me from seeing the notes... so I have to play with feeling, but also keep a lid on it somewhat.

I really love music! Music helps us express or resonate to what is beyond words. Music is also a lesson... A single note played by itself is neither right nor wrong. Only, in relation to other notes & circumstances (timing, tempo, loudness) does it fit or not.

[godservant]

to me its who we are..
we just need to be still and listen and we will know who we are.. there is no magic potion..
just the regular stillness, patience and silence will teach us.

but we find this difficult becuase we are soo used to having to do soo much that we cant sit still for even a moment without our minds pulling us into somthing else that we "need" to do.

[bostonbarney]

OT:

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in that lecture-room.
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

--Walt Whitman

[godservant]

in awareness and consciousness everything is found.