Consciousness: freaky shit or nbd

i've always meant to read TOOCITBOTBM (pronounced "toccitibottom") cuz my parents were impressed by it once upon a time. same with godel, escher, bach.

i think both of those are great and the kind of books i wish were written more often.

I am actually pretty receptive to parts of Jaynes' theory. particularly the idea of consciousness as a product of cultural conditioning. but I love that book most of all because it's this imaginative engagement with the dawn of civilization, a period of history i just find so mysterious and fascinating. i remember being in Hawaii and seeing a display about how they think the first humans arrived there like 6000 years ago and i thought what it must have been like to sail across the ocean back then and their view of just what the world is must have been so different from ours. like, everything must have been so unimaginatively vast. of course there were gods, and magic, and all that.

Well I can certainly recommend GEB unequivocally; reading it pretty radically changed my adolescent mind about some stuff. Though some of Hofstadter's stances about cognitivism are less popular in the cognitive science world than they were 30 years ago. It's still a really delightful and informative book.

my stepdad told me about the general gist of jaynes' book when i was 13 or so, and because he was very learned, i just accepted the idea as sensible people consensus. i didn't question it until many years later when one of my professors gave me a funny look in response to my mention of how, once upon a time, everyone went around obeying the dictates of voices in their heads.

"i think he claims that only consciousness + language/symbolic thinking is actually consciousness"
is there anything really wrong with that claim? you'd need to propose a model of ego-consciousness that is devoid of linguistic processing, and i'm not sure if that's possible.

seems reasonable to think that consciousness could exist without language and symbolic thinking, but that gets into how we define consciousness.

i guess i'm just opposed to the idea that consciousness doesn't exist without language, or that consciousness w/o language is some whole other non-human type of process

agree

it's fine to be politically opposed to it, but you'd need to come up with a reasonable alternative. also why would you think non-humans don't have some kind of language?

Oh god let's not have a semantic argument. I think most people are pretty clear that whatever animals have, it ain't language.

i'm not "politically" opposed to it, i don't even know what that means. and i doubt that the consciousness that, say, cats experience is mediated by various types of meows running through their mind. xpost

or yeah, what ledge said.

i don't know how you can avoid a semantic argument when defining what consciousness is seems to be nothing but a semantic argument. (i don't think cats have a secret meow-based language, but they'd need some kind of abstractive mechanism to do anything clever)

I thought we'd been doing pretty well at defining - well discussing - what consciousness is (phenomenal, physical, illusory, magic, etc) not how we apply the term (awareness, introspection).

Do you think language is necessary for a conceptual schema?

i'd wager it is, but mostly because I can't fathom how you could devise a mechanism for holding concepts without it looking an awful lot like a language.

can you guys introspectively come up with any examples of what you feel is a conscious experience that isn't affected by a linguistic process in some way?

I find it hard to conceive of consciousness without a language-type structure. Parents to thread, there has been quite a lot of research into the early stages of mind and their relationship to language development, istr.

Were there real cases of "raised by wolves" types? Did any of them have anything they could articulate about their pre-language interiority?

i don't think cats have a secret meow-based language, but they'd need some kind of abstractive mechanism to do anything clever

i don't know about this. some birds know how to open electric doors by flying in front of the sensor. this is clearly not a dumbly programmed behavior that evolution has "selected for". it's something they've individually learned by observing and doing. but i'm not sure that it requires abstract, conscious thought. the system could work on nothing more than stored memory and desire: desire for food + awareness that food is <there> (in that direction, w/e) + knowledge that doing <this> allows access. the second part of that might not even be necessary.

I think it's best to consider bare consciousness as the perceptual ground or "environment" to any communicational process---that communication doesn't "represent" conscious experience but in fact excludes it as the very basis for it to be communication.

like, the owl might not actually be saying "oh, really?" it could be something that just sounds like that.

communication doesn't "represent" conscious experience but in fact excludes it as the very basis for it to be communication.

ooh, nice. i like that.

maybe "exclusion" is alone is misleading, though. you mean "exclusion of the thing itself (awareness of conscious experience) in favor of an abstracted representation of it (linguistic communication)", right?

which is funny because we remain consciously aware during linguistic thought and communication, even of linguistic thought and communication itself

Sorta--in semiotic or communication theory the first step for something to be communication is the introduction of the possibility of "not"--ie, this is the word "frog" and not a frog.

so the reason i wouldnt want to say "exclusion of the thing itself" is because we're then talking about the thing itself. it's more the boundary that's at issue.

yeah, that's what i thought you meant. i wonder, though, cuz that (second) formulation makes the negation seem so active. perhaps in the most primitive forms of symbolic communication, there's no awareness of the separation between the symbol and the thing. that's sort of a tangent, though...

Gregory Bateson has a famous essay on what he calls "meta-communication" in animals. As when dogs play fight it means "this bite is not a bite."

if you're talking about bare consciousness to be the summation of perceptual input, i'm not sure in most people that that would count as consciousness at all, since most of it is largely discarded. it'd be interesting to see how people with photographic memory operate, if they operate on entirely different modes of consciousness. a lot of people with really good facility at this seem to have pronounced synaesthesia (which again points to linguistic mechanisms at work)

can you guys introspectively come up with any examples of what you feel is a conscious experience that isn't affected by a linguistic process in some way?

Introspection can be pretty misleading, but it often feels like I can form a complex thought in my head far faster than I can select (not say) the individual words needed to convey it. If you said there was still a linguistic structure underlying it though I couldn't argue against that. How about going in the other direction, simple sensations, sights, sounds, smells? I might think "mmm frying onions!" but the sensation comes first, it seems to me.

if you're talking about bare consciousness to be the summation of perceptual input, i'm not sure in most people that that would count as consciousness at all, since most of it is largely discarded.

base consciousness needn't be so entirely base, though. it could be a combination of raw sensory input, a focus on the part of that input that seemed the most interesting/relevant from moment to moment, and a wash of triggered feelings and memories to give sense and texture to the moment (fear, desire, intention, hunger, affection, etc). i'd perfectly willing to describe such a combination as "consciousness", even if it lacked language and abstractive ability.

perhaps in the most primitive forms of symbolic communication, there's no awareness of the separation between the symbol and the thing.

this is an interesting idea that i've thought about before not so much in terms of total lack of awareness of the separation, but in terms of empathy, like the way a good drawing of something can make you feel something towards what is depicted. i'm thinking of cave paintings as early symbolic communication, and the idea of the paintings having a kind of talismanic power, a symbol as an expression of desire for what is depicted.

can you guys introspectively come up with any examples of what you feel is a conscious experience that isn't affected by a linguistic process in some way?

any time you learn to accomplish complex tasks without linguistic structure underlying it, say through muscle memory in a video game, or athleticism, or drawing. i suppose words can act as signposts for learning these things, but when it comes to really doing them, language can actually impede you.

stuff like repetitive learned tasks seem designed to pass these conscious experiences into the un/subconscious realm, so it's consonant with language's reduced role in those things.

Is this base level of awareness/sensation parsing (or even relatively complicated interactive motor control) the same "consciousness" Jaynes is describing as coming from the bicameral mind, tho

I mean, I don't want to beg the question by defining consciousness as something that is at a level that requires language just to show consciousness requires language, but it seems that there are certain mental abilities (deception, for instance) that can't be explained without the kind of structure that could map pretty well to a language.

Jaynes is writing about the "internal theater" of the mind--so kinda like the voice you use to talk to yourself.

"consciousness" is a notoriously fraught term--kinda laden from the start with what we could call Cartesian biases. I'm sure some would say we'd solve a lot of these problems by simply ceasing to use that word at all.

for fun, here's a bit from the first page:

A secret theater of speechless monologue and prevenient counsel, an invisible mansion of all moods, musings, and mysteries, an infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries. A whole kingdom where each of us reigns exclusively alone, questioning what we will, commanding what we can. A hidden hermitage where we may study out the troubled book of what we have done and yet may do. An introcosm that is more myself than anything I can find in a mirror.

well there's a board description if ever i

animals have simple language, just as we have simple echolocation

at least when neuroscience types are talking about it they mean something with a grammar of a certain complexity. using that usage, anyway, no animals have language.

note that this is from informal conversations, might not be settled doctrine or anything.

I voted "freaky shit" - though of course there's nothing "weird" about consciousness itself. What could be more natural to us than the fact of our own consciousness? It only seems "weird" when you consider it from a certain point of view (ie., the "objective" view).

chomsky and o.nate otm

wouldn't you think the limits animals have w/r/t language also limits the quality of their consciousness? i wonder if depressed pets bounce back really quickly compared to their depressed owners because of this lack of depth to their depression.

quite the opposite, my dog can sit and stare glumly out the window all day

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

poll? huh? oh, yeah, this thread was a poll

wouldn't you think the limits animals have w/r/t language also limits the quality of their consciousness?

Maybe. But i would not say 'limits' because there are differences in sensory reception that in some animals perhaps produce an even more vivid awareness of the world than human have. If language is a way of sending and receiving signals to/from the outside world, it seems that a lack of human-sounding spoken language is more than made up for in other signals. Also most of their signals presumably deal with life & death, fight or flight, the natural environment, etc. rather than abstract arbitrary modern human noise so really who is the one with the lower quality of consciousness?

Not freaky at all, I love consciousness. What a gift. Damn.

― windjammer voyage (blank), Monday, July 16, 2012 10:40 AM (2 days ago)

This.

And, I wanna hug the late great's depressed dog.

why is dog bummed? is this chronic?

With all this demolition work at hand, why do the vast majority of physicists hold on to any kind of physicalist explanations? First, because the mathematics works. Second, because the alternative isn't taught in grad school. The alternative is to include consciousness in the mix. If the observer makes the difference between a wave and a particle, and if the universe displays itself to us as matter (which is all particles), then perhaps the observer is needed to make the universe appear as we see it. This possibility is logical and by no means outlandish. It occurred to some quantum pioneers (although not Einstein) almost a century ago, because in some ways consciousness is inescapable.

The universe does need molasses, or even glue, as forces holding protons together are sometimes called. There are huge complexities and mysteries that we are skipping over, yet the existence of the universe isn't a technical question open only to specialists with advanced scientific degrees. "Why are we here?" is a universal question, and to answer it, you must ask "Why are we conscious? Where did mind come from?" After all, if the observer plays such a key role in turning waves into particles, you can't get very far if you don't know what the observer is actually doing.

In the alternative explanation, the entire universe is imbued with consciousness. Just as there are force fields, invisible but all-pervasive, a consciousness field can exist to uphold the activity we call "mind." The universe evolves, regulates itself, takes creative leaps, and exhibits exquisite mathematical rigor and beauty. The hallmarks of intelligence are there, waiting for the next paradigm shift. At the moment, the word "intelligence" brings up the red herring of intelligent design, which no one except religious fundamentalists wants to be associated with. "Consciousness" gives us a less-tainted word, and there is a growing community of theorists seriously thinking about a conscious universe.

If it exists, then you and I are embedded in the consciousness field. It is the source of our own consciousness. Which means that we are not alone. As one physicist said, "The universe knew that we were coming." An infinite consciousness that spans all of creation sounds like a new definition of God. If so, then we are part of God's mind, and that includes science. The whole argument leads to a wild conclusion by most people's standards: It is God who is discovering the God particle. Infinite consciousness has created individual consciousness to go out into creation and look around. As it does, individual consciousness -- meaning you and I -- has been given free will and choice. We don't have to see our link to the infinite consciousness field. We can take our time discovering who we are and where we come from. But the day seems very near when it will seem quite real and quite natural to say that the conscious universe saw us coming.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/god-particle_b_1674717.html

i actually prefer to think of consciousness as a kind of blindness as much as awareness. attributing "consciousness" to God is just....hubris? at the very best it's a facile humanism.