Going through a stack of unread magazines, I came across a Scientific American from September 2018 that was a special issue devoted to the subject "Humans: Why we're unlike any other species on the planet."
All of the articles are interesting, but I found Susan Blackmore's Decoding the Puzzle of Human Consciousness: The Hardest Problem to be especially so.
Blackmore has an affinity for Zen, which is reflected in the concluding excerpts from her article that I've shared below.
I resonate with her leaning toward the illusionist theory of consciousness. Meaning, we certainly do have subjective experience, but our sense of free will and being a separate conscious self is an illusion with evolutionary benefits.
I also feel that many other, if not most or all, animals are conscious. Anyone who lives with a dog or cat has a strong sense that they have an inner life just as we humans do -- which is one of the best moral arguments for vegetarianism.
Enjoy...
Yet the more biology we learn, the more obvious it is that we share not only anatomy, physiology and genetics with other animals but also systems of vision, hearing, memory and emotional expression. Could it really be that we alone have an extra special something -- this marvelous inner world of subjective experience?
The question is hard because although your own consciousness may seem the most obvious thing in the world, it is perhaps the hardest to study. We do not even have a clear definition beyond appealing to a famous question asked by philosopher Thomas Nagel back in 1974: What is it like to be a bat?
...The crux here is this: If there is nothing it is like to be a bat, we can say it is not conscious. If there is something (anything) it is like for the bat, it is conscious. So is there?
...Even worse is the "hard problem" of consciousness: How does subjective experience arise from objective brain activity? How can physical neurons, with all their chemical and electrical communications, create the feeling of pain, the glorious red of the sunset or the taste of fine claret?
This is a problem of dualism: How can mind arise from matter? Indeed, does it?
The answer to this question divides consciousness researchers down the middle. On one side is the "B Team," as philosopher Daniel C. Bennett described them in a heated debate. Members of this team agonize about the hard problem and believe in the possibility of the philosopher's "zombie," an imagined creature that is indistinguishable from you or me but has no consciousness.
Believing in zombies means that other animals might conceivably be seeing, hearing, eating and mating "all in the dark" with no subjective experience at all. If that is so, consciousness must be a special additional capacity that we might have evolved either with or without and, many would say, are lucky to have.
On the other side is the A Team: scholars who reject the possibility of zombies and think the hard problem is, to quote philosopher Patricia Churchland, a "hornswoggle problem" that obfuscated the issue. Either consciousness just is the activity of bodies and brains, or it inevitably comes along with everything we so obviously share with other animals.
In the A team's view, there is no point in asking when or why "consciousness itself" evolved or what its function is because "consciousness itself" does not exist.
...This is the well-known, though much misunderstood, claim that consciousness is an illusion. This approach does not deny the existence of subjective experience but claims that neither consciousness nor the self are what they seem to be.
Illusionist theories include psychologist Nicholas Humphrey's idea of a "magical mystery show" being staged inside our heads. The brain concocts out of our ongoing experience, he posits, a story that serves an evolutionary purpose in that it gives us a reason for living.
...This illusory self, the complex of memes, is what I call the "selfplex." An illusion that we are a powerful self that has consciousness and free will -- which may not be so benign. Paradoxically, it may be our unique capacity for language, autobiographical memory and the false sense of being a continuing self that serves to increase our suffering.
Whereas other species may feel pain, they cannot make it worse by crying, "How long will this pain last? Will it get worse? Why me? Why now?" In this sense, our suffering may be unique.
For illusionists such as myself, the answer to our question is simple and obvious. We humans are unique because we alone are clever enough to be deluded into believing that there is a conscious "I."
It seems to me that consciousness as a thing, as a particular occurrence that arises in a in a particular part of the brain, is bound to falter. Not because consciousness is not an emergent property of the brain, but because its more likely to be a product of the brain's entire processing network – so can never be isolated to one area.
The Zen or Chan Buddhist (that Blackmore practices) logs consciousness as being the sixth sense and consciousness arises with the interaction of a subject and an object. One cannot be conscious of something that has never been experienced – say a noegip – as no word or image exists in memory of such a thing. But rearrange the letters to read pigeon and immediately an image arises from the word.
It is tempting to allocate consciousness as an inherent quality of the entire universe (panpsychism) and that our brains are a conduit for consciousness. Panpsychism has recently experienced a resurgence as an answer to the mind /body problem. Panpsychism can also substitute for the vacuum left with the dethroning of religion and gods.
Also, as Paul Singh points out in his book 'The Great Illusion', by taking the term conscious and making it into an abstract noun by adding 'ness' to it, it immediately becomes a thing to be studied (by the experts!) rather than a process that anyone can observe.
In my opinion conscious'ness' – along with the concepts of free will and the separate self are just some of the illusions our amazing brain/body organism has evolved to allow us to navigate and survive in our particular environments.
Posted by: Ron E. | June 05, 2022 at 02:46 AM
All that matters from our place on planet earth is..
1. Consciousness exists and can be measured... Wakefulness, awareness, memory. Aware of other people, aware of ourselves, accuracy of understanding, accuracy of executive decision making, levels of self control and self management. In psychology, the varied aspects of higher cognitive functioning have been measured extensively.
2. Consciousness can be expanded, raised, developed. Practices of meditation are one area that has proven effective in improving the above measures. Diet, exercise, mental practice, medication are other areas.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | June 05, 2022 at 04:45 AM
The physical body and the personality that utilizes it only exist as transitory aliveness.
Consciousness, I suggest, is aliveness happening in now-ness.
All living things are consciousness. They do not have consciousness. They are consciousness happening.
Consciousness is not a separate thing from aliveness. Human aliveness evolved to be an ability to be aware of being aware of being human and make sense of the neuro/electro/chemical activity in the human brain that interacts with sensory data input.
Human awareness is therefore dependent on a living human brain and cannot exist independent of one.
This means that the experience we refer to as ego, personality, mind, soul, spirit or self, comes to an end when the human brain on which it is dependent dies beyond the point where life can be resuscitated.
The unevidenced (not personal anecdote) belief in the continuance of what you believe is you, or any thing (physical, emotional, psychological, or any combination thereof) that may be considered as being connected in any way with what you believe is you, is unhelpful in that it creates an attachment to a future that does not exist and turns the mind away from the experience of now-ness.
Consciousness = brain activity
Awareness = me being aware of my brain activity
Self-awareness = me being aware of what is hiding below the surface
Aliveness = biological functioning of the body
Posted by: Roger | June 05, 2022 at 09:01 AM
"Also, as Paul Singh points out in his book 'The Great Illusion', by taking the term conscious and making it into an abstract noun by adding 'ness' to it, it immediately becomes a thing to be studied (by the experts!) rather than a process that anyone can observe."
.....Never heard of Paul Singh, but he talks sense. There's no consciousness, merely people (and animals, maybe, and birds, not to forget bats) that are conscious, and (a subset of them) able to formulate abstractions like 'consciousness'. There's no thoughts, merely people (and other creatures?) thinking, and (some of them) able to formulate abstractions like "thoughts". Just as there's no actions per se, only people (and animals, et cetera) doing things.
That neatly cuts through the Gordian knot of the hard problem.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | June 05, 2022 at 09:47 AM
Hi A you wrote
"There's no consciousness, merely people (and animals, maybe, and birds, not to forget bats) that are conscious, and (a subset of them) able to formulate abstractions like 'consciousness'."
While this may not be an entirely scientific view, it is a practical one, and one that I must admit, I agree with.
The entire creation could be labeled conscious, but that would merely be in how we define that word.
We know that human beings can be aware of others, can care for others, can hurt others. To some extent animals can do the same.
The earth heals itself, but by mostly mechanical responsive means that are often blind,. This is where human awareness can help, such as with the development of solar and wind energy, or the efforts to limit micro plastic pollution. The earth is largely unaware. We are injuring her in her sleep, so to speak.
But however we symbolize it, our biological awareness is a powerful tool and to the extent humans have it, relatively unique. We should help develop that awareness, because in that is the potential for greater good.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | June 05, 2022 at 09:56 AM
Hi, Spence.
"While this may not be an entirely scientific view, it is a practical one, and one that I must admit, I agree with."
.....Glad you agree.
I'm not sure whether this is scientific. But I'd imagine the burden of proof would be on showing that such a thing as consciousness actually exists. In the absence of such evidence I guess it would make sense to posit otherwise. But then that's just me thinking aloud, and thinking aloud knee-jerk: I might be mistaken, I admit that. Although sitting here I don't see quite how.
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"The entire creation could be labeled conscious, but that would merely be in how we define that word."
.....Whoops. Hardly the entire creation. It may turn out that way, just like the creation may turn out to be a simulation, but absent evidence we can hardly assume that. I don't see how definitions come into play here, by any normal usage of the word 'conscious', I don't think we can say that the universe is conscious. We can speculate, sure. Like Olaf Stapledon did, very entertainingly indeed.
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"...however we symbolize it, our biological awareness is a powerful tool and to the extent humans have it, relatively unique. We should help develop that awareness, because in that is the potential for greater good."
.....Agreed.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | June 05, 2022 at 10:13 AM
Blackmore states that consciousness and self are illusions. Not in the sense that they are not real, just that they are not what they seem to be. And what they seem to be, what we feel them to be is some strange phenomenon that resides within us – almost a separate entity, a director of sorts.
As a naturalist, I can only see the simplicity of nature. To impose abstract reasoning onto the simplicity of nature seems to me to deny its grandeur which is surely not what our ability to think, to basically solve the problems of survival has evolved for.
I think it is important for us to shake off the shackles of the type of thinking that compels us to conceive that we are somehow special, that there is an element that raises us above the rest of nature.
To be conscious of something then, is to be able to sense it, to perceive it; whether it is a physical or a mental 'object'. Consciousness arises on contact. If something is not sensed then there is no conscious experience. It could be that the brain enables a focusing on its content. This focusing, this attention function being the experience of being conscious.
To see the self, our ‘identity’ as it is – a bundle of memories, thoughts and ideas, then the identification with these mind contents loses its tenacious hold. Freed from the amalgamation of ‘self’ concepts (and we are the author of none of them, being programmed with them from birth) perhaps we can begin to understand the inherent sameness or oneness that we all are.
All this mental phenomenon can be realised. I also think that the very act of watching the mental processes that go to make what we call the mind, self, me, consciousness etc. can allow us to see that there is no me, no observer, no special entity doing the watching - just the ever processing brain/body doing living its natural life.
Posted by: Ron E. | June 05, 2022 at 02:41 PM
@ Ron E. [ All this mental phenomenon can be realised. I also think that the very act of watching the mental processes that go to make what we call the mind, self, me, consciousness etc. can allow us to see that there is no me, no observer, no special entity doing the watching - just the ever processing brain/body doing living its natural life. ]
Thank you for probing the subject of consciousness. While IMO it's important to
identify the baggage of "me/self" to an extent, I think it's confounding to assert
we exist in a "natural life of brain/body" untethered from observation, from any
trace of dualism whatever. After all, the immersive nature of dualistic thought
ensures we're operating in its framework... even when we're identifying that
pesky sense of "me" that burdens us.
So at this level we haven't actually realized who or what we are. That may
mean we are a transcendent entity playing a game, dumbing down our
awareness for an exhilarating, dramatic scene of tag. One day a faint,
pre-arranged voice within whispers and we hear an insistent bell calling
us back. We follow the sound and step out from the playground. Now
we're home again and realize we never really left. It was just a game.
Posted by: Dungeness | June 05, 2022 at 05:16 PM
I can assure you that my cat knows more than I do… and I scored the highest IQ of all the students in my school which was one of the the top ranked schools in the United States.
We humans are so disgustingly arrogant and ignorant.
Posted by: Sonya | June 06, 2022 at 08:47 PM
I can ensure you that “intelligence” does NOT equate with success or happiness.
It is now commonly recognized that one only needs average intelligence to be successful in this world.
AVERAGE. Average is good. It’s humble and harmonious. You might call it Wisdom…
Posted by: Sonya | June 06, 2022 at 09:03 PM
@Sonya
Yes equilibrium also in E Q
meditation brings that - this time I mean contemplation
77
Posted by: 77 | June 07, 2022 at 01:01 AM
Curiosity <<< Which School ?
Posted by: 7 | June 07, 2022 at 01:24 AM