Below you can read a letter in New Scientist that raises a question I've pondered. Is there really such a thing as consciousness?
It's clear that, along with other living beings, we humans are aware of both our external surroundings and internal states like hunger, thirst, fear, sexual attraction, thoughts, and such.
However, since that awareness is the brain in action when neurons reach a certain level of complexity, is it necessary to call that brain activity by a special name? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
As the letter writer notes, at one point people thought that there must be some medium that allows light waves to move through space. But when electromagnetism came to be understood, the need for that medium vanished.
Likewise, it is possible that what we now call consciousness is the product of our ignorance about how brains function. When the mechanisms of brain activity are more fully understood, "consciousness" may come to be viewed as a concept that no longer is relevant.
On a related note, today I listened to part of a dialogue Sam Harris had with Loch Kelly regarding dual and non-dual awareness. Because they are both deep into esoteric Buddhist philosophy, I'm finding their hour and a half discussion both interesting and irritating.
Irritating, because both Harris and Kelly like to talk about how consciousness is unbounded, not being confined to the space within the head. I sort of get why they say this, but it seems obvious that (1) the brain is inside the head, and (2) the brain is necessary for consciousness.
Thankfully, today I heard Harris say something that went a long way toward alleviating my irritation. He noted that there is a difference between how we experience consciousness, and the ontology of consciousness.
Meaning, there is the reality of what consciousness actually is, how it arises, what its nature is, and all that, and then there is the felt subjective experience of consciousness or awareness. Harris and Kelly are mainly, if not entirely, speaking about the experiential aspect of consciousness, not how science currently objectively understands it.
So two things can both be true. Consciousness feels like it is unbounded, and consciousness also is the product of brain activity within the limited area of a human head.
Here's the New Scientist letter.
Consciousness could be another aether
Published 1 July 2020
From Ólafur JÓnsson, Mendrisio, Switzerland
I do enjoy the frequent letters and occasional articles on the subject of consciousness (Letters, 6 June). I am, however, bewildered by how the concept is defined. It seems to me that no two people can agree on what it is they are trying to describe.
Maybe because I have learned a spattering of languages in my life, I’m used to trying to guess a word’s meaning from its context, and the context seems to me to vary significantly in writing on the matter of consciousness. I wonder if the search for it is like that for the luminiferous aether, the proposed medium that would allow light waves to move through space. What reason do we have to assume consciousness exists, however much we “feel” it must?
Perhaps we need statues of the brain instead of Buddha, Christ, Crucifix. A holographic one would be really cool. Very sci-fi.
Hail the Almighty Brain. Blessed be thy synapses. Thou hast given us life and limitless combinations of complex connections creating confusion and delusions of consciousness.
Posted by: Nuatheist | August 05, 2020 at 11:13 PM
“Conscious models are tools enabling those who can understand them, to share a common awareness. In the cyclic process of drawing together, weaving, expanding outward in a direction, and observing the result, consciousness is the interval between the outward expansion and the observation of the results. It occupies the outward phase, not the inward phase. To use the example of the archer, from Tibet,
Pulling back the arrow in the bow is perception.
Aiming the arrow is matching the perception with memory.
Releasing the arrow is consciousness (a response - the word, like the arrow, escapes you).
Observing where the arrow strikes is awareness (because it is a surprise whether it misses or hits the target).
Consciousness as the Creator
Consciousness creates social organization, or culture, and maintains its existence and growth by allowing the members of that organization to perceive more and more about themselves and their common surroundings.
We know together via communications. Communicate derives from the Latin communicans meaning to make common (by sharing or imparting information).
The essential aspect of consciousness is a process of shifting information from one level of communication to another, higher level.”
Posted by: This Magic Sea | August 06, 2020 at 07:18 AM
Sam Harris is working day and night trying everything to figure out consciousness.
Perhaps it’s the topic of his next book.
Posted by: Harris fan | August 06, 2020 at 09:52 AM