"I' is consciousness itself, not a conscious being

I'm pleased to share another email message from JB, a frequent commenter on this blog who has an outstanding ability to write cogently about profound topics. 

I was tempted to say "philosophical topics," but as you will read below, JB's thoughts about consciousness really have little to do with philosophy -- at least, as most people regard this field. The ancient Greeks considered philosophy (literally, love of wisdom) to be a way of life, not an academic exercise.

So in that sense, what JB writes about is indeed philosophical, since there is nothing more intimately connected with life than our consciousness. No consciousness, no life.

Enjoy.

Hi Brian,

 

I noticed that you haven't taken part in much of the discussion about volition. On a separate but related topic, I notice that there is much talk about the term "I" supposedly representing something nonexistent. 

 

Years ago I spent some time examining this term and its usage and came to the conclusion that it does represent something real, at least as real as anything else in an existence where everything is temporary, relative, and conditional. Arriving at this conclusion seems logical but please correct me if there is something deficient with this use of logic.

 

I came to understand that the term "I" simply represents consciousness itself, not even a conscious entity per se, but consciousness itself. 

 

It should be noted at the outset that the assertion "I am consciousness" is not a spiritual or religious claim. I do not contend that consciousness is immaterial, will survive death, or can exist in any way apart from the brain. 

 

We use the term "I" and, rather than simply being a conventional artifact, it denotes a function.

 

Thus, it helps to examine and isolate the referent of this signifier. At first blush, one might conflate the term "I" with the totality of each individual being or an entity, but this would be a mistake. The symbol "I" ultimately refers to the seat of subjectivity, the seat of experience. "I" am the receiver-of-experience, the experiencer, or more to the point—experience itself. The seat of subjectivity is consciousness.

 

Experience necessarily entails consciousness.

 

There is no experience without consciousness, no consciousness without experience. They are at minimum coexisting and inextricable, if not identical (I presume the latter out of parsimony). Therefore, consciousness, subjectivity, and experience are all interchangeable terms and essentially synonymous.  

 

Why do I contend that consciousness itself is the referent of the "I" signifier?

 

I take the radical empirical and phenomenological route to arrive at this answer. I have had anesthesia twice in my life and I utterly disappeared during that time. I also entirely vanish each night in deep, dreamless sleep. I reemerge in dreams because a form of consciousness (dream-consciousness) emerges. 

 

The term "I" does not refer to one's body (save their brain) because one could have their arms and legs amputated and "I" would remain intact. "I" have nothing to do with almost all of my physiological processes. My heart circulates blood, food is digested, my hair grows—all without "I".

 

"I" is, quantitatively speaking, an infinitesimally small aspect of this organism. "I" is also a mere fragment of my mental processes.

 

But qualitatively speaking, "I" is vital.

 

The very term "quality" itself necessarily implies experience/consciousness. Without consciousness, there is no experience. Without experience, there is subjective nonexistence. While consciousness may be a quantitative minority in terms of the totality of mental activities, it is absolutely imperative for experience and therefore, the awareness of existence. Experiential existence is entirely contingent upon consciousness.

 

Ask yourself this question: Do I have consciousness or am I conscious? It may seem like variations on the same question, but it isn't.

 

Having consciousness requires an entity that possesses consciousness, the corollary being that it could functionally exist in the absence of this capacity. If "I" have consciousness, "I" must be both prior to consciousness and able to be detached from consciousness and still functionally exist.

 

This doesn't hold up either under the phenomenological evidence. "I" doesn't appear without consciousness or apart from consciousness, so there is no basis for the argument that "I" is referring to anything other than consciousness. "I" doesn't have consciousness; "I" is conscious. "I" is consciousness itself.

 

Another example: When one says, "I feel nauseated", one could just as well say "the experience of nausea is happening." The differences are due to grammatical convention. The term "I" denotes something that is never divorced from experience. Consciousness is the only function that can never be divorced from experience. To be conscious is to be experiencing.

 

Consciousness is experience. Consciousness/experience and "I" utterly disappears with a blow to the head, with deep sleep, with anesthesia, and will permanently disappear with death. Death is the "deep sleep" from which one never reemerges.

 

Now, what about those that claim that "I" cannot refer to anything because there is no self? Proponents of this belief claim that there must be no self because there is no self that can be found. Coincidentally, or not, consciousness is also something that cannot be found. Consciousness is self-disclosing but cannot be directly apprehended by itself.

 

The author Douglas Harding's so-called awakening experience involved the perception of having "no head." The "no head" experience is strikingly analogous to the seemingly earth-shattering experience of "anatman," wherein the experience leaves one with the sense that they, and everyone else, have "no self."

 

As Walter Truett Anderson wrote, "You know you have a head, of course, but you do not have a head for yourself, in your own field of vision." Likewise, I would contend that you have a self of course, but you do not have a self for yourself. Just as one's head can never see itself and is sensed as either nonexistent or a "vast emptiness," people go looking for the self and find nothing.

 

They have concluded that the self is either nonexistent or is a vast emptiness/nothingness (read: Nagarjuna).

 

Just as one cannot directly see their head, one likewise cannot directly see their self, as the self is the "seeing" (is consciousness itself). This inability to directly apprehend consciousness has led some in the academic community to conclude that it too is not existent, but a rather persistent illusion (more on that below).

 

But to conclude that consciousness and the self are illusory and ultimately nonexistent would be as silly as believing that you literally have no head.

 

The moral of the story is: just because you cannot sense the self doesn't necessarily imply that there is no self, any more than not being able to see your head means that you have no head. If it is true, as Francis of Assisi said, that "what you are looking for is that which is looking," then of course it will never see itself.

 

Alan Watts said, "You don’t know yourself, because you never can. [Yourself is] never an object of its own knowledge. Just as a knife doesn’t cut itself, fire doesn’t burn itself, light doesn’t illumine itself. It’s always an endless mystery to itself."

 

Some theoreticians have, at one time or another, attempted to construct an argument postulating that consciousness is an illusion (read: Blackmore, Dennett, et al.). Most have retreated from this position due to its untenability,  as the argument quickly unravels itself when subjected to scrutiny. 

 

If it is the interaction of material structures that create the illusion of consciousness (and that consciousness is, in fact, non-existent), then it is by and through a non-existent faculty that we have come to discover and study these very structures that are said to be generating the illusion. Therefore, it would follow that these material structures (particles, molecules, neuro-chemicals, the brain) are also non-existent if they were apprehended via a non-existent function. 

Simply out, if consciousness is non-existent, then all information/experience gleaned by and through said non-existent phenomenon is, by logical necessity, also non-existent.

 

If consciousness does not exist, then the content of consciousness (sensory experience, for instance) must not exist. Thus, all sensory phenomena presumably experienced by and through consciousness (including any and all features of the material world) would not, in fact, exist. The universe does not exist. The earth does not exist. You and I don't exist. Neither do these theoreticians, their books or any of the ideas contained within these books.

If consciousness does not exist, then all mental phenomena -- thought, observation, analyzation, reason, logic, etc. do not exist, including the very thought that consciousness doesn't exist. The notion of something supposedly without existence making an assertion regarding the existence of anything, especially itself, would be the zenith of irony. 

 

Consciousness is self-disclosing and yet thoroughly and unequivocally indemonstrable. Ironically, that which makes all knowledge and experience possible can itself only be known or experienced "indirectly." It can never be a direct object of itself. 

 

And furthermore, while consciousness can never become its own object, the existence of consciousness in any experience is the only thing that can be known with certainly due to its self-disclosing and self-validating nature.

 

All of reality may be a "holographic projection" or a simulation, yet this wouldn't alter the fact there is consciousness of the projection. With the consciousness of reality or the consciousness of an illusion, consciousnes is the common denominator. While all of the objects of consciousness may in fact just be illusions, if one is conscious of these appearances, one can know that consciousness itself exists and is therefore not an illusion. 

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Let me know what you think if you have the time.

 

Here's what I emailed back to JB. His responses are shown in italics.

 

I agree with pretty much everything you said. The rest isn’t something I disagree with. I just need to ponder it more. Mostly I’m referring to the notion that if consciousness doesn’t exist, then nothing else does either. Maybe you’re right. It’s just a subtle, slippery argument.

 

Are you referring to this: "Experiential existence is entirely contingent upon consciousness." No, I certainly don't think that whatever exists is dependent upon consciousness for its existence. I just mean that the experiential component of life depends on being conscious. If we existed but were unconscious (like zombies), we wouldn't experience anything at all. It would be a black out - unconsciousness. 

 

I don’t think you’re saying that before consciousness existed in the universe, there wasn’t a universe. That’s a different issue. At least, maybe it is. Things exist even if no conscious being is aware of them, I’m quite confident of that. What you’re getting at seems to be how confident we humans can be about our take on the world if our consciousness is an illusion.

 

The way I see it, a masterful alien programmer seemingly could produce a sense of consciousness in the actors within the simulation we might be in. I don’t see how this would make a difference in the reality of the simulation. It would still exist even if, as is the case with human simulations/computer games, the actors had no consciousness. 

 

I'm not sure because, as I've said, I equate consciousness with experience. In my understanding, one necessarily implies the other. Can a character in a computer game actually internally experience that world? Each character would be having its own internal felt-experience, unknown to any of the other characters who would be having their own? 

 

I sort of agree that our sense of being conscious is its own validation.

 

But as noted in a previous post, and you seem to agree with this, what we’re talking about is “consciousness of” things, not consciousness as an independent entity. My question just is about the need for consciousness as a validation of what is real. I see the possibility of an advanced computer/robot being able to determine what exists in the world through its simulated senses (vision, touch, etc), even though it lacks consciousness.

I think such a robot could certainly compile data through simulated senses, but it would be a strain for me to submit to the notion that such objective data would be subjectively experienced. You could program the robot so that it was as if it experienced, but I don't  think it would. Maybe it's a question of the degree of advancement needed to reach that level of complexity.

 

We are like robots in every way except for one: experience.

 

 

 

Comments

[Spence Tepper]

Hi JB

You wrote
"But to conclude that consciousness and the self are illusory and ultimately nonexistent would be as silly as believing that you literally have no head."

Consciousness may exist. Certainly awareness exists.
But our understanding of it is conceptual. Concepts aren't real. But they may not be illusion. They may be accurate principles about how reality functions.

It's a concept as far as we can think about and discuss.
That concept is not real. It may be informed by evidence. One person's understanding may be better than another's.

But with discussing consciousness, we're discussing a theoretical concept.

It's actual functioning is not fully measurable or understood.

We should not confuse the concept with the underlying reality anymore than we should not confuse a crayon drawing of the world with the actual world.

Scientifically, when we can duplicate conscience in the laboratory, say through a truly sentient computer, we will certainly have proven at lay s rudimentary understanding of consciousness.

Until then we are left with conjecture.

I suggest the argument for both God and consciousness are very similar, as is the case against them.

People think they are aware and see things objectively, but social psychology proves this is mostly illusion.

[777]

"I suggest the argument for both God and consciousness are very similar, as is the case against them."

Excellent

Why treat / be-reason them differently ?

But the ' I ' stays in a competition battle , knowing it lost

777

The same kind of battle the can expect from AI & I

[Arjuna]

@ 777.

I guess AI will reject that it was created by a creator - like Brian lol.

Great point 777. That’s refreshing to read and ponder!

Take care

[Turan]

Over the years I have studied, observed, collected and written on the subject of identity from which I have made the the following deductions on the nature of mind and self. It has been mostly an intellectual exercise yet informed by simple meditation and reflection. It is an on-going process which is why I still study and read Brian's blogs and the comments. This is why I like this particular piece of reasoning from JB. Although I understand and concur that consciousness is dependent on the brain I have arrived at a different perspective on the consciousness/ 'I' connection.

Simply put, I see our ability to be conscious as an evolved extension of the early-life ability to be aware. Even simple organisms are aware enough to move away from danger and towards food. More advanced creatures are aware enough to plan ahead and store food etc. Maybe it is all genes, instinct and chemistry, but that is the same for us – our brains amazing ability has evolved thought, a sense of self and to be able to be conscious of these happenings.

Firstly the mind. The brain's accumulation of information starts from birth and is an on-going process. This information becomes the contents that forms our minds and are purely arbitrary and accidental; they are determined by the time and place we are born, by our parents and peers, the local religion, country, beliefs and so on, this information becomes our identity, who we are, our 'selves'. The mind is the brain's 'store' of information – it is from the mind that a 'self' is constructed

The human brain with its ability to reflect (be aware or conscious) must inevitably create ‘one who reflects' – called the 'self'. The self, the I, or me I posit here is a mental construct. It is an illusion only in the sense that it is not what we may habitually think it is – i.e. not an independent, separate entity but an emergent phenomenon of the brain. It is a process.

The mind (being the accumulation of information) cannot 'see itself'. Neither can the self or thought see itself. For this it relies on consciousness. The mind, thought and the sense of self (or I) are made known through the brains ability to generate consciousness. “The neurological basis for consciousness is well established. The brainstem awakens the thalamus and cortex above, which in turn gives us the human experience”. (From K. Nelson's book – The God Impulse). The self is inextricably linked to consciousness – as is everything perceived physically and mentally.

I feel to understand the processes that construct the mind and the self, is to understand our often almost neurotic search for meaning and validation. The mind and self are real and necessary for our survival, yet so often, maintaining these structures causes untold division and conflict for ourselves and the world in general.

[JB]

Turan, I basically agree with your points. I also agree that consciousness (the "I" process) is not independent or separate process. It doesn't need to be.

There are a couple of points I'd like to add.

1.) I would contend that the brain and mind are indeed identical and this has unavoidable implications. The neuronal-configuration and the felt-experience are the simultaneous objective and subjective modes of a single unified event. As such, one cannot reasonably isolate one mode as having greater reality, primacy, or causality.

2.) I ended that message with the emphasis on the significance of experience. Felt-experience is a feedback mechanism unlike any other because the condition of being conscious is necessarily required.

On feedback mechanisms: "Our body uses the feedback it receives from a particular process to monitor how well it is functioning. Based on the outcome, it decides whether it should continue performing a specific action, or if it should stop the action. This is called a feedback mechanism."

A feedback loop is a form of self-monitoring and self-adjustment, otherwise known as control. When the monitoring is contingent on the state of being conscious, what you effectively have is a form of conscious self-adjustment.

The negative feedback loop and positive feedback loop correspond to negative and positive experience, respectively. For instance, a biological negative feedback loop is the "counteraction of an effect by its own influence on the process giving rise to it, wherein the result of a certain action may inhibit further performance of that action." In other words, if a particular action generates a negative felt-experience as a result, that experiential result will inhibit the further performance of that particular action.

[Arjuna]

Perhaps demonic possessions ( and please don’t get hung up on that term “demonic”) are just illusions too loool. Created by the mind and “i”!!!

[Jen]

JB says: "With the consciousness of reality or the consciousness of an illusion, consciousness is the common denominator. While all of the objects of consciousness may in fact just be illusions, if one is conscious of these appearances, one can know that consciousness itself exists and is therefore not an illusion.

Plants have awareness and they don't have a brain, but they do have some kind of consciousness, they react to music, pain, sound, touch, words, stimuli.

This is a funny and fascinating experiment...

"Shocking experiment proves plants & trees can see, have emotions, memory & react to environment" (3:39)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrDGHYRDVNc

[777]

Might be shocking again
but

Stones have, . . Mountains, . . Planets , Stars, Galaxies, .... Universes

But in another time_space , even the animals in another one

Nothing exists without His Breath

If we knew What we are talking about
more respect will exist

Without Love nothing would be possible
all types of Love, .. big or micro-minuscule

Wonderful

777

[Spence Tepper]

Even Particles of energy respond to each other.
Consciousness is everywhere. Spooky!

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=5210

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/22/science/far-apart-2-particles-respond-faster-than-light.html

[Turan]

Perhaps we need to remember that much of what the brain detects never becomes conscious. Feedback, whether from the internal environment of our brain/bodies or from the environment around us more often than not does not become the conscious experience. What If the 'controller' never consciously experiences the 'feed-back' loop? It is widely known that many experiences never appear in consciousness. The eye sees the dark shape but the brain only reacts to register it consciously when it perceives it move and becomes a bear.

Whatever theories we suggest, the whole purpose of being conscious – or any other sentient attribute – is for the purpose of survival. Does the ability to be conscious derive from the awareness of simple single-celled organism. Jen mentions that “Plants have awareness and they don't have a brain, but they do have some kind of consciousness”. In this context I would prefer the term aware rather than conscious.

And perhaps awareness is all there is – the cognitive faculty, evolved by natural selection, designed to help us make sense of ourselves and our surroundings. An awareness of the thoughts, memories and sense of self that goes on internally and awareness of the immediate environment. The concept 'consciousness' is relatively new in science and philosophy. It was recently made 'the hard problem' by Chalmers - and utilised by philosophers who love to weave mysteries around life.

[777]

https://www.facebook.com/LanguageEvolution/photos/rpp.318345618319572/1101020293385430/?type=3&theater

[JB]

Turan: "Perhaps we need to remember that much of what the brain detects never becomes conscious. Feedback, whether from the internal environment of our brain/bodies or from the environment around us more often than not does not become the conscious experience."

True, yet this in no way negates the fact that some feedback (in the form of felt-experience) does become conscious content which makes it, by definition, conscious feedback. Since the feedback mechanism ultimately functions for the purpose of self-regulation, this particular form—regardless of how quantitatively minor it may be—consists of behavioral self-modification arising from the condition of being conscious.

Turan: "What If the 'controller' never consciously experiences the 'feed-back' loop? It is widely known that many experiences never appear in consciousness."

When the condition of being conscious occurs, the felt-experience is the feedback. Obviously directly unexperienced dynamics (pH regulation for instance) would not be involved in the experience-based behavioral feedback loop.

Do you mean to imply that proven biological systems phenomenon of feedback is a myth when you put it in quotes?

[Spence Tepper]

Hi JB
You wrote
"When the condition of being conscious occurs, the felt-experience is the feedback. Obviously directly unexperienced dynamics (pH regulation for instance) would not be involved in the experience-based behavioral feedback loop."

Turan had actually written something a little different

" Turan: "Perhaps we need to remember that much of what the brain detects never becomes conscious. Feedback, whether from the internal environment of our brain/bodies or from the environment around us more often than not does not become the conscious experience."

In traditional Behavior modification the subject's awareness is inconsequential to behavior change, even permanent change.

Even in respondent conditioning, where the subject actually acts to trigger a positive response, they may not be aware of the response or that their action or sequence of actions are triggering it.

The mouse is hardly aware of its learning a maze to get to the cheese.

The pigeons playing ping pong in the lab are hardly aware of their own technique, or that their new found competitive spirit was awakened from food pellets judiciously provided at key moments.

Feedback does not often require conscious awareness.

We learn lessons and acquire habits often without our participation, or even in spite of efforts to the opposite.

Our brain adapts to what it will accept, even before it shares any of that feedback with us.

In so many ways our conscious awareness of so much is tangential and of no consequence.

"We think we move, but we are being moved."
- Goethe

[Spence Tepper]

Oops Operant conditioning is the correct term for Behavior mod, rather than respondent or classical conditioning.

[JB]

Spence: "Feedback does not often require conscious awareness."

"Often" being the operative word. I'm speaking about that which does require the condition of being conscious.

[JB]

Spence, if performing the particular action of eating clams produces the experience of intense unremitting nausea for you, would that felt-experience be totally inconsequential to any subsequent action regarding the performance of that action (eating of clams)?

The felt quality of nausea, being an experience, is entirely dependent on the condition of being conscious. And if that felt-experience figures into the modification of your future behavior (avoidance of eating clams), then it is behavioral self-modification dependent on, and arising directly from, the condition of being conscious.

[Jen]

Hi Spence, I agree with... "Even in respondent conditioning, where the subject actually acts to trigger a positive response, they may not be aware of the response or that their action or sequence of actions are triggering it."

I've just recently realised that I am far too polite and nice especially living in Australia where the people are very blunt, so my reaction is usually nice and polite to someone and then afterwards I think to myself why did I say that, just because I don't want to hurt other people's feelings! Its conditioning I suppose.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi JB
The example you provided nicely depicts Classical or Pavlovian conditioning. The taste elicits either a satisfying or a negative sensation. That is generally not under your control. Your subsequent aversion to clams (or in the opposite case a mouth watering response upon seeing food associated with satiation of hunger) also is not under your control. These happen largely without your volition, at the autonomic level. And they become unconscious conditioning you may not be aware of.

Then the sight of clams, or the logo of the restaurant serving them, or a face similar to the waitress who served them all can yield a very negative reaction of aversion for the remainder of your life.

This helps explain attractions and aversions to things that we have no explanation for, which may have been caused by early childhood experiences or traumas we no longer recall. People are obsessed with certain objects and people and have fears beyond reason of others. And generally they can't recall why. So they often attribute the cause to any number of wrong sources. And that becomes part of their narrative, their persona.

Having a dear friend die while in the Sangat can turn their significant other against the sangat for life. And they will justify this for any number of logical reasons that actually have nothing to do with the conditioned aversion to the sangat.

The practice of deep meditation is a powerful method to bring forth these hidden conditioned responses so they can be melted away in a sea of bliss, but we do need to become fully aware of them for that to happen, otherwise they remain locked into our programing. Even in meditation, courage, fortitude and persistence are necessary.

Washing ourselves of these old conditions (and new ones) which are really our prison bars, is a daily process.

The result is greater conscious awareness, and greater freedom of will.

Just because you do not see the invisible prison bars of one's own unconscious doesn't mean they aren't there.

They are very real, though hidden, and we all must struggle to work through them, to find freedom. To breathe free.

[Dungeness]

Just because you do not see the invisible prison bars of one's own unconscious doesn't mean they aren't there.

They are very real, though hidden, and we all must struggle to work through them, to find freedom. To breathe free.

Hi Spence,

I'm reminded of Maharaji's advice: "Be bold enough to struggle".

"Struggle" is such an interesting word. No matter what's hidden,
it's always just to be still and become aware of it

[Turan]

"Do you mean to imply that proven biological systems phenomenon of feedback is a myth when you put it in quotes?"
(Posted by: JB | October 21, 2018 at 12:44 PM)

No JB., it's a writing habit of mine, there just for 'emphasis' and to draw attention to the subject - perhaps unnecessary, but hey.

[JB]

Spence: "The example you provided nicely depicts Classical or Pavlovian conditioning. The taste elicits either a satisfying or a negative sensation. That is generally not under your control. Your subsequent aversion to clams (or in the opposite case a mouth watering response upon seeing food associated with satiation of hunger) also is not under your control."

Just to be clear, I'm not claiming the nature of the sensation or one's attraction/aversion to a sensation are modifiable. I'm merely saying that the experiential nature of an event (positive or negative) is factor in subsequent engagement in that action or not (modification of behavior). Therefore, the result is the modification (or direction) of experienceable behavior based on felt-experience, and this felt-experience is, by definition, entirely dependent on the condition of being conscious.

Maybe this has interesting implications, maybe it doesn't. I'm not claiming anything like "free will", only that the condition of being conscious is consequential, either directly or indirectly, on the modification of behavior. It should be noted that this experience-mediated modification occurs automatically, by virtue of simply being conscious.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi JB

Yes it can work as you say. We can have a level of conscious experience at the time.

But it is also true that while conscious we may not be aware of it happening at the time. We may attribute the experience to the wrong cause or even to something positive even while it is effecting us negatively and we find ourselves avoiding similar situations in the future.

Modification of behavior is largely out of our control.