What would it be like to be more or less conscious?

[Meatbot]

What would it be like to be "more" or "less" conscious?

I think consciusness is on a continuum and that brings up some questions. I think everyone would agree that in some way lower lifeforms, while conscious, are "less" conscious than we are. A dog is less conscious than you. A flea is less conscious than a dog. A microbe is less conscious than a flea. At each level they have less introspection, less analysis, a smaller range of thoughts, less "smartitude".

In what others ways might they be less conscious? What would it feel like if you were less conscious?

More interestingly to me, what would it feel like if you were more conscious? What does that mean? Perhaps more access to the functions of your brain that are normally unconscious? Maybe like the ability to control your own heartbeat, or conscious access to the processes occurring while asleep.

Are autistic savants more conscious since they seem to have access to things that perhaps are hidden from the rest of us?

 

[disregardthat]

This is how I imagine it:
I think self-consciousness plays an important role. If we can imagine degrees of self-consciousness, and a state of the complete absence of self-consciousness, I think the task is easier. If a creature is not self-conscious, perhaps its thoughts are exclusively focused on the surroundings. In that case it is easier to imagine lesser degrees of awareness by imagining weaker sensory experience and less capacity to understand the dynamic mechanism of the immediate surroundings.

Now, suppose you are forced to intensively focus on your surroundings, as if you were escaping in fear or desperately looking for something. You are in a larger degree disallowing your thoughts to reflect on the self as an entity. Higher intensitivity will result in lesser degree of self-reflection and self-consciousness, and taken to the extreme it will be comparable to a creature lacking self-consciousness.

 

[Ferris_bg]

I share this view and I hope that this will be proven while we are alive. Until then we can only speculate. Personally I think while you are under stress, you are actually less conscious. If you meditate you can achieve different forms of consciousness too, which should have lower value than your normal state (time passes quicker as you forget about it). Maybe it has something to do with generated information pro second too. Before different incidents a lot of people report that "thousands of things gone through their mind for less than a second" (time passes slower). Maybe in that period of time this person was more conscious. Or maybe there is a cap of our species consciousness (http://www.questforconsciousness.com/conscious.html). As for autistic savants, I highly doubt that their degree of consciousness is the same as ours.

 

[brainstorm]

Consciousness is often a product of exposure to different situations. Someone who has worked in food service or retail, for example, has a very different consciousness of what is going on in a restaurant or store than someone who is only conscious of the consumption environment and the professional behavior of the personnel. Similarly, you can probably remember being a child and having a very limited consciousness of things based on your immediate interest in them. Really, this interest-limitation continues in adulthood but adults have stronger tactics for denying the relevance of consciousness that doesn't directly appeal to their interests. The current green-movement and the way people respond to calls for conservation or consciousness of resource scarcity demonstrate this.

In fact, there is reason to believe that people are happiest when their consciousness is minimized. For example, someone who has had recurrent car trouble and has learned to pay attention to certain noises, fluid levels, temperature level, etc. drives less care-free than a teenager who just races around without concern for fuel-economy, wear and tear on parts, safety, etc. Nevertheless, although ignorance/unconsciousness is bliss in this sense, it also makes people more susceptible to problems that they cannot control. So, for example, children or adults who aren't conscious of how things work are subject to frantic grasping at straws when things malfunction. Their only hope is to have access to enough money to be able to replace or otherwise pay someone to fix any problem they encounter in life - which explains why there is so much frantic clamoring and manipulation for money all the time. Money, among other things, facilitates the ability to live well despite relative ignorance and unconsciousness.

 

[Meatbot]

In fact, there is reason to believe that people are happiest when their consciousness is minimized.

+100. I love this idea and I think you may be on to something. If you are in the zone, you can't be thinking about how unhappy you are.

 

[brainstorm]

+100. I love this idea and I think you may be on to something. If you are in the zone, you can't be thinking about how unhappy you are.

True, but there's a catch. Namely, if you are aware that there's something to make you unhappy that you are blocking from your consciousness, then you will be unhappy because you're not at peace with whatever that is. So consciousness is not something you can actively block out. Once you are conscious of something, you have to figure out a way to make peace with it. Without that peace, you are in a war of repression against consciousness, which does NOT produce happiness.

 

[Goethe]

I do not think that being less conscious makes us happy, per se. I think being less self-conscious makes us happy. When you're 'in the zone', you're still very conscious -- in fact, you're hyper-engaged and thus hyper-conscious. But you lack cognizance of your consciousness.
,
Note that I'm defining consciousness here as consciousness of something, not as self-awareness. Thinking about what your mind is just feels like pointing the camera at the screen, so-to-speak. Useful mental exercise, but ultimately consciousness of self seems like a roadblock to being really conscious (by the above definition).

So the answer to OP's question, I think, is this: go try some speed.

But seriously, compare your groggy morning-state to what you feel like during the afternoon (or whenever your optimal arousal time is - for me it's about 4:00 AM ). Being 'more conscious than usual' would be to your optimal arousal what your optimal arousal is to being groggy.

When self-discovery types talk about meditation and Zen and whatnot, this is what they're referring to - becoming 'more conscious' by becoming less self-conscious, ultimately achieved by training yourself to focus.

 

[brainstorm]

I do not think that being less conscious makes us happy, per se. I think being less self-conscious makes us happy. When you're 'in the zone', you're still very conscious -- in fact, you're hyper-engaged and thus hyper-conscious. But you lack cognizance of your consciousness.
,
Note that I'm defining consciousness here as consciousness of something, not as self-awareness. Thinking about what your mind is just feels like pointing the camera at the screen, so-to-speak. Useful mental exercise, but ultimately consciousness of self seems like a roadblock to being really conscious (by the above definition).

So the answer to OP's question, I think, is this: go try some speed.

But seriously, compare your groggy morning-state to what you feel like during the afternoon (or whenever your optimal arousal time is - for me it's about 4:00 AM ). Being 'more conscious than usual' would be to your optimal arousal what your optimal arousal is to being groggy.

When self-discovery types talk about meditation and Zen and whatnot, this is what they're referring to - becoming 'more conscious' by becoming less self-conscious, ultimately achieved by training yourself to focus.

Good point - well explained. But it actually suggests why self-reflection is a useful method to achieving better non-self-conscious consciousness. The reason is that somehow people get trained to identify with externalities (this includes aspects of their subjectivity they have learned to externalize) in terms of self. So many people have difficulty being conscious of almost anything without becoming self-conscious when some part of what they perceive comes into question. I.e. they're passionately non-objective, taking almost everything personally - often even the very claim that they are non-objective. Think about how many people you know who feel personally insulted if you question their objectivity. Most people are consumed with self-consciousness in this sense.

Self-reflection allows you to come to the realization that the things you identify with as you "self" are really just ideological constructions that your ego identifies with, causing you to take things personally. I don't think it is possible to totally overcome the part of the mind that identifies and takes things personally, but I do think that rigorous exercises in self-reflection can help people overcome a great deal of personal identification that interrupts consciousness and eclipses it with self-consciousness.

 

[Caramon]

Do LSD and you'll realize what "more" is like. :P

 

[brainstorm]

Do LSD and you'll realize what "more" is like. :P

I think using LSD just causes people to be overwhelmed with cognitive activity to the point of rejecting the benefits of increased consciousness. I think this is why so many people who were/are "hippies" embrace emotionalism and intuition and reject more cognitive approaches to reasoning. It is unfortunate, imo, that LSD was promoted as being "consciousness enhancing" when the ultimate effect was to reduce consciousness and discourage it as overwhelming. How can people achieve peace-of-mind with greater consciousness if they only associate it with hallucination?

 

[Pythagorean]

I'm pretty sure I'm less conscious in the morning right when I wake up. I'm also pretty sure that our general level of consciousness fluctuates already throughout the day, so we more-or-less know what it's like to be more-or-less conscious.

 

[brainstorm]

I'm pretty sure I'm less conscious in the morning right when I wake up. I'm also pretty sure that our general level of consciousness fluctuates already throughout the day, so we more-or-less know what it's like to be more-or-less conscious.

But think of what it would be like to not understand any physics of anything going on around you. You would just see things without being conscious of what or how. Like kids are amazed by carbonation or prisms or whether cars are powered by squirrels running in wheels.

 

[Galteeth]

But think of what it would be like to not understand any physics of anything going on around you. You would just see things without being conscious of what or how. Like kids are amazed by carbonation or prisms or whether cars are powered by squirrels running in wheels.

I'm not sure if something like knowledge of physics is the same thing as consciousness. I could imagine a situation where one was more knowledgeable about physics, but less consciouss overall.

The only thing I can think of that felt like more/less conscious was my personal experiences with MDMA. I would say that being under the influence of MDMA felt like being "more" conscious then normal, which is also a reason I would not recommend it. (The effect from initial experiences can not be repeated, and being aware that normal experience is "less" then a possible state of being is a bit of a bummer.)

 

[brainstorm]

I'm not sure if something like knowledge of physics is the same thing as consciousness. I could imagine a situation where one was more knowledgeable about physics, but less consciouss overall.

I think it is more like physics, or other knowledge, can help raise your consciousness/awareness of certain things that were always happening "right under your nose." A middle-school teacher was telling me, for example, that she asked students to study their toilets and write down how they thought they worked. She said the responses she got for this assignment were widely varied. Probably many of the students had never thought about what causes a toilet to flush. Someone who understand physics, however, might be able to assess how the toilet actually works and would therefore be conscious of more than someone who just knows that it does work and leaves it at that.

 

[nonequilibrium]

Hm, interesting thread. So it seems we got three aspects we're discussing:
S: Selfconsciousness
C: Consciousness (of your surroundings)
A: Awareness (without necessarily realizing it, esp. when you're working on instincts)

Interestingly enough, due to earlier comments, it indeed seems like higher S will generally reduce A (and maybe C); lower animals, on the other hand, are very aware, yet completely lacking in S. It also seems like C can only appear when S is present, implying you're somehow relating the exterior world to your self.
Imagine being called up in the middle of the night; at first you'll probably stumble around the room not sure where you are or what you're actually hearing. But I suppose the confusion isn't elementary, because I can imagine someone picking up the phone (which constitutes a non-confused orderly movement) but still being without a genuine S and thus also no C; everything seems to be pure A. The funny thing is that we generally can't remember A if it was without C. Or is our memory divided so that only conscious experience can be consciously recollected?

Would it be fair to say every living (vaguely defined) thing has A yet only we have S?

EDIT: as for the subdebate about physics: what about a computer having all physical knowledge attainable by us? It would not suffice for an S. Then again, it might be a moot point as people were saying it could heighten S, but not initiate it. But clearly a general student cramming all physics knowledge in his head won't experience a heightened S (much like a computer...), yet I would somehow have to agree that someone taking in physics with a fresher look could gain S, but then what constitutes a fresher look? It might be an empty statement, because that "fresher look" probably implies a consciousness of the universal principles that the physical knowledge seems to bring, thus explaining nothing unless it bites its own tail.

 

[ledicarus]

Hm, interesting thread. So it seems we got three aspects we're discussing:
S: Selfconsciousness
C: Consciousness (of your surroundings)
A: Awareness (without necessarily realizing it, esp. when you're working on instincts)

Interestingly enough, due to earlier comments, it indeed seems like higher S will generally reduce A (and maybe C); lower animals, on the other hand, are very aware, yet completely lacking in S. It also seems like C can only appear when S is present, implying you're somehow relating the exterior world to your self.
Imagine being called up in the middle of the night; at first you'll probably stumble around the room not sure where you are or what you're actually hearing. But I suppose the confusion isn't elementary, because I can imagine someone picking up the phone (which constitutes a non-confused orderly movement) but still being without a genuine S and thus also no C; everything seems to be pure A. The funny thing is that we generally can't remember A if it was without C. Or is our memory divided so that only conscious experience can be consciously recollected?



First what is your basis for animals not having S, since we do not speak "animal" we can not know if they are self conscious. Second, C and S are interconnected as we have determined that C can not exist without the mind S entering into it. Third, is A not the world that exists without C? The question then becomes does the world exist A without C or is A the collective of all S's with active C's. Will a higher S reduce A, perhaps if not correctly utilized. Our problem lies not in our higher S clouding our view of A but rather it not being used as a part of A - without the mind there is no definition of A.

 

[apeiron]

First what is your basis for animals not having S, since we do not speak "animal" we can not know if they are self conscious. Second, C and S are interconnected as we have determined that C can not exist without the mind S entering into it. Third, is A not the world that exists without C? The question then becomes does the world exist A without C or is A the collective of all S's with active C's. Will a higher S reduce A, perhaps if not correctly utilized. Our problem lies not in our higher S clouding our view of A but rather it not being used as a part of A - without the mind there is no definition of A.

No, Mr Vodka got the divisions right. Humans have the extra skill of instrumental self-awareness through speech and socialisation. Then biological awareness divides into attention and habit.

So there is a three-way complexity here that makes the OP an incoherent question. Or at least we have to separate out each of the three kinds of "mindfulness" and talk about them individually.

For instance, greater attention - does that mean your experience is narrower because it is more focused?

Or greater habit - does that mean you are less self-aware because you are acting in more automatic "fire and forget" fashion and so less able to self-report?

 

[ledicarus]

For instance, greater attention - does that mean your experience is narrower because it is more focused?

Or greater habit - does that mean you are less self-aware because you are acting in more automatic "fire and forget" fashion and so less able to self-report?

Greater attention, is your experience narrower. Intriguing. I would have to say no. For example, while you are driving in a vehicle you lose control and strike a tree. As your vehicle motioned toward the point of impact you were focused on the tree. While you did not see the entire event taking place your narrowed focus still engulfed your senses, your awareness of the event. Your awareness, your narrower view, was filled with the experience.

Fire and forget would fall under the same as instinct correct? you react then think, however, you aren't really. Your 'reaction' is based on your mind devising a plan in seconds on how to react to any particular situation. Are you less self aware at that moment, perhaps. As you fall down the stairs are you thinking 'this is going to hurt' or 'where do I grab to stop myself'. Actually, neither. You are consumed by the moment. In the case of a longer event however you have time to think, react and even prevent the event.

Hmm, I think I have strayed :) sorry.

 

[ledicarus]

No, Mr Vodka got the divisions right. Humans have the extra skill of instrumental self-awareness through speech and socialisation. Then biological awareness divides into attention and habit.

Instrumental self-awareness through speech and socialization, again I am confused- do animals not communicate and socialize. Are you referring to the ability to be aware of ones speech and socialization? How do we define that? by asking ourselves if we are thinking?

 

[apeiron]

Instrumental self-awareness through speech and socialization, again I am confused- do animals not communicate and socialize. Are you referring to the ability to be aware of ones speech and socialization? How do we define that? by asking ourselves if we are thinking?

You could read for example...

Vygotsky differentiated between our higher and lower mental functions conceiving our lower or elementary mental functions to be those functions that are genetically inherited, our natural mental abilities. In contrast, he saw our higher mental functions as developing through social interaction, being socially or culturally mediated (ibid).
Behavioural options are limited when functioning occurs at an elementary level. Without the learning that occurs as a result of social interaction, without self awareness or the use of signs and symbols that allow us to think in more complex ways, we would remain slaves to the situation, responding directly to the environment (ibid). An example of this direct response to the environment is an ape separated from a banana by a fence though there is an entrance just a few metres away. The ape is unable to distance itself from the situation so that it may look at the options open to it. Instead, it remains salivating, totally focused on the object of its desire.

In contrast, higher mental functions allow us to move from impulsive behaviour to instrumental action. Cultural humans differ from primitive humans and other primates in that we do not react directly to the environment (ibid). Our psychology is mediated by cultural means. From infancy we learn through interaction with others. We are because of others.

http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/virtual/trishvyg.htm

 

[ledicarus]

You could read for example...

OK, so what about my cat? He wants his litter box changed. He knows where the litter is located, and how to act in order to get me to change the litter. This is your lower functions. However, he also has reacted when I don't respond the way his actions dictated. For example I forgot, walked upstairs and he attacked my heels. Was this again a lower function or a higher one? The rest, quite intriguing. I will read that in the morning, thank you.

 

[Galteeth]

OK, so what about my cat? He wants his litter box changed. He knows where the litter is located, and how to act in order to get me to change the litter. This is your lower functions. However, he also has reacted when I don't respond the way his actions dictated. For example I forgot, walked upstairs and he attacked my heels. Was this again a lower function or a higher one? The rest, quite intriguing. I will read that in the morning, thank you.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/freethinking-cat-garbages-outside-the-box,8945/
Warning: blue language

 

[ledicarus]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/freethinking-cat-garbages-outside-the-box,8945/
Warning: blue language

Proving that an animal does have "some" higher level thinking, maybe he just chooses not to do trigonometry or read maps =^..^=

 

[Meatbot]

Seems like there are maybe two aspects to consciousness.

Let's say I'm a major league ballplayer and I'm at bat. I am laser focused on the pitcher and the ball. So your focus is narrow but deep. You don't notice anything else around you. You are more conscious of the pitcher, but less about everything else. In a way you are more conscious than in normal life, but in a way you're less conscious. But in either case you are aware of yourself.

Is laser focus more conscious than sitting on the beach soaking up lots of varied stimuli? I don't know.

So now let's compare the above to the experience of a deer tick. It could be focused or unfocused but is still considered less conscious than we are in either case. Why?

What if it's hyperfocused and only thinks "bite that thing", "poop" or "tired" all the time and basically cannot think anything else? I suppose the opposite would be thinking very little about a wide variety of things. Not sure what that would be though.

Just throwing stuff out there. Meh...tired of typing...

 

[brainstorm]

Seems like there are maybe two aspects to consciousness.

Let's say I'm a major league ballplayer and I'm at bat. I am laser focused on the pitcher and the ball. So your focus is narrow but deep. You don't notice anything else around you. You are more conscious of the pitcher, but less about everything else. In a way you are more conscious than in normal life, but in a way you're less conscious. But in either case you are aware of yourself.

Is laser focus more conscious than sitting on the beach soaking up lots of varied stimuli? I don't know.

So now let's compare the above to the experience of a deer tick. It could be focused or unfocused but is still considered less conscious than we are in either case. Why?

What if it's hyperfocused and only thinks "bite that thing", "poop" or "tired" all the time and basically cannot think anything else? I suppose the opposite would be thinking very little about a wide variety of things. Not sure what that would be though.

Just throwing stuff out there. Meh...tired of typing...

The baseball player is actually conscious of much more. Ever see the movie, "the Fan," with Wesley Snipes? He must be conscious of his average, the politics and pressures surrounding his average, etc. A hitter has to consciously block out chanting from fans and harassment that he would otherwise be conscious of. Does the deer tick have all these conflicting impressions and the ability to consciously control its reactions to them - or does the tick just react to its strongest impulse?

 

[apeiron]

Is laser focus more conscious than sitting on the beach soaking up lots of varied stimuli? I don't know.

The mind is more complex than this.

You have one basic dimension here of arousal. So when nothing much is doing, your mind can relax, idle, run vague. There is little focus.

Then there is a second basic dimension here which is the division between endogenous and exogenous focus. Or between concentration and vigilance. So you can be highly aroused and narrowly attentive (like the baseball player) or highly aroused and taking in everything, as when you are walking down a dark alley.

This is all on top of the attention vs habit dichotomy. So a baseball player may be highly focused, but he will not be consciously controlling the actions of hitting the ball. The main job of attention in such situations is to suppress any tendency for the mind to wander and leave the mind clear to react from learned subconscious habit.

 

[Rasalhague]

Great question. I think a lot of the variety in the answers comes from differing (implicit or explicit) interpretations of the word consciousness.

Meatbot: A dog is less conscious than you. A flea is less conscious than a dog. A microbe is less conscious than a flea. At each level they have less introspection, less analysis, a smaller range of thoughts, less "smartitude".

Less conscious = less complex analytic thought.

Jarle: Now, suppose you are forced to intensively focus on your surroundings, as if you were escaping in fear or desperately looking for something. You are in a larger degree disallowing your thoughts to reflect on the self as an entity. Higher intensitivity will result in lesser degree of self-reflection and self-consciousness, and taken to the extreme it will be comparable to a creature lacking self-consciousness.

More intensely conscious = less self-conscious. (Thinks: what about intense embarrassment versus drowsily absorbed in gazing at a landscape.)

Ferris_bg: Personally I think while you are under stress, you are actually less conscious. If you meditate you can achieve different forms of consciousness too, which should have lower value than your normal state (time passes quicker as you forget about it). [...] Before different incidents a lot of people report that "thousands of things gone through their mind for less than a second" (time passes slower). Maybe in that period of time this person was more conscious.

More conscious = more thoughts per second. Stress and meditation examples of less conscious states. (Thinks: some people who’ve been in a life-and-death situation--very stressful--report intense and detailed thought, taking in information and being able make decisions in less time than normal.)

Brainstorm: Nevertheless, although ignorance/unconsciousness is bliss in this sense, [...]

Less conscious = knowing fewer facts or being less wise.

Meatbot: If you are in the zone, you can't be thinking about how unhappy you are.

“The zone” = less conscious, at least by Brainstorm's definition.

Goethe: I do not think that being less conscious makes us happy, per se. I think being less self-conscious makes us happy. When you're 'in the zone', you're still very conscious -- in fact, you're hyper-engaged and thus hyper-conscious. But you lack cognizance of your consciousness.

More intensely conscious = more conscious. And less self-conscious states can be more intense. (Similar to the distinction Jarle made, except identifies consciousness with greater intensity, rather than more focus on self.)

Goethe: When self-discovery types talk about meditation and Zen and whatnot, this is what they're referring to - becoming 'more conscious' by becoming less self-conscious, ultimately achieved by training yourself to focus.

Meditative state (in the Oriental sense) = more conscious. (The opposite of Ferris_bg’s scheme, probably because Ferris_bg, like the OP, identifies consciousness with analytic thought.)

Brainstorm: But it actually suggests why self-reflection is a useful method to achieving better non-self-conscious consciousness.

More self-consciousness can lead to more consciousness as such? (But this is probably not more consciousness in the absolute sense that I think Goethe meant, more intense consciousness as such, and perhaps a simpler state of consciousness, but rather consciousness in Brainstorm’s sense of posts #4 and #14, knowing more facts or being wiser, the latter definition being closer to that implied by Ferris_bg and Meanbot’s original post.)

Goethe: So the answer to OP's question, I think, is this: go try some speed.

Caramon: Do LSD and you'll realize what "more" is like. :P

Galteeth: The only thing I can think of that felt like more/less conscious was my personal experiences with MDMA. I would say that being under the influence of MDMA felt like being "more" conscious then normal,

More conscious = more intensely conscious and/or more alert.

Brainstorm: I think it is more like physics, or other knowledge, can help raise your consciousness/awareness of certain things that were always happening "right under your nose." A middle-school teacher was telling me, for example, that she asked students to study their toilets and write down how they thought they worked. She said the responses she got for this assignment were widely varied. Probably many of the students had never thought about what causes a toilet to flush. Someone who understand physics, however, might be able to assess how the toilet actually works and would therefore be conscious of more than someone who just knows that it does work and leaves it at that.

Consciousness = knowledge of facts, or the greater variety of thoughts that results from this knowledge. Or is there a thematic connection between the novelty of directing thought at plumbing wonders and the way tripping derails your thinking habits letting you notice surprising new aspects of familiar things.

mr. vodka: Hm, interesting thread. So it seems we got three aspects we're discussing:

S: Selfconsciousness
C: Consciousness (of your surroundings)
A: Awareness (without necessarily realizing it, esp. when you're working on instincts)

Interestingly enough, due to earlier comments, it indeed seems like higher S will generally reduce A (and maybe C); lower animals, on the other hand, are very aware, yet completely lacking in S. It also seems like C can only appear when S is present, implying you're somehow relating the exterior world to your self.

I like the idea of teasing out the different phenomena that people are discussing here. It would be good to sharpen some of these definitions, particularly as the words consciousness and awareness aren’t necessarily distinguished in this way in everyday English. If someone is deeply absorbed in their surroundings to the point that they’re only dimly aware of themselves, would that be an example of C or A? Does surroundings include the imagined surroundings of a dream?

Ledicarus: First what is your basis for animals not having S, since we do not speak "animal" we can not know if they are self conscious.

Very good point.

Meatbot: Let's say I'm a major league ballplayer and I'm at bat. I am laser focused on the pitcher and the ball. So your focus is narrow but deep. You don't notice anything else around you. You are more conscious of the pitcher, but less about everything else. In a way you are more conscious than in normal life, but in a way you're less conscious. But in either case you are aware of yourself.

Good example. Some people describe similar experiences of intense focus in terms of being less aware of themselves, e.g. Goethe in post #7. What a sportsperson is focused on involves their own body and reactions, so I wonder if it’s less common to talk about being in the (sport) zone in that way. But think of all those anecdotes about someone in an emergency situation who risks their life or does something spontaneously with all their attention focused on the situation and others involved. Sometimes they only become aware of (what you would expect to be) a painful injury after the event. People also talk about being absorbed in art, a film, say, or carried away while listening to music. Some people also talk about loss of self due to drugs or meditation; on the other hand, some describe such experiences in terms of a fresh and more general insight into what self can mean...

Meatbot: Is laser focus more conscious than sitting on the beach soaking up lots of varied stimuli? I don't know.

Nor me. It’s an interesting question though. I'd be inclined to side with the "more consciousness = more intense experience" faction, including any kind of intensity, be it focused on one thing or flitting rapidly or making connections between a wide variety of things. That seems the most natural definition. After all, we already have less ambigious words like knowledge and wisdom and intelligence for those other concepts. Perhaps an example of being very much less conscious would be a state on the edge of sleep where I'm experiencing many rapid but faint impressions. But I'm not sure if this is actually a lessening of consciousness/awareness/experience/subjectivity itself or only seems like that because it's hard to remember and conceptualise. (Of course dreams can be intense experiences.)

Meatbot: So now let's compare the above to the experience of a deer tick. It could be focused or unfocused but is still considered less conscious than we are in either case. Why?

A cynical answer: We value consciousness (it’s what we believe distinguishes us from our closest non-human rivals, computers). We also value ourselves above ticks. We know consciousness has something to do with brains. We have fancier brains than ticks do. For these reasons, it’s natural for us to think that we have “more” or this valuable and value-conferring thing than ticks.

Meatbot: What if it's hyperfocused and only thinks "bite that thing", "poop" or "tired" all the time and basically cannot think anything else? I suppose the opposite would be thinking very little about a wide variety of things. Not sure what that would be though.

The internet?

Brainstorm: The baseball player is actually conscious of much more. Ever see the movie, "the Fan," with Wesley Snipes? He must be conscious of his average, the politics and pressures surrounding his average, etc. A hitter has to consciously block out chanting from fans and harassment that he would otherwise be conscious of.

If he’s able somehow to ignore these distractions without too much conscious effort, he’ll probably perform better. If he is acutely conscious of all those things, he’s not in the famously useful state of mind Meatbot described (#24), what Goethe called the zone (#7).

 

[Galteeth]

Some other terms I think might be useful are intensity and flavor. Intensity would just be the subjective "realness" of something. This is what I was referring to with regards to MDMA. Things seem more there. This is a bit hard to describe, it's a bit like the allegory of the cave. This seems like an increase in A, C, and F at the same time. I'm not entirely sold that each of those are distinct things either, but they might be useful as continuum points. i think any attempt to map consciousness will have to be done with several dimensions.

Certain aspects of consciousness can also be more intense without others increasing in intensity.

Flavor is a bit more abstract, but if you think back to different types of experiences you have had in your memories at different ages in rapid succession (like say, a time you were doing homework, a time you were frightened, a time you felt bored, a time you were in love, etc) you can get a sense of what i mean. The tricky part of all of this is how consciousness is a steadily moving target, as your current mood influences perception of memories, and contrast between different states can help to clarify them (make what is more, or less, or intensity level, or flavor.)

 

[Rasalhague]

I've been thinking in terms of three coordinates: intensity, grain, quality. Maybe focus would be another one for the list.

Intensity. Without some intensity, no experience at all. The comparision people have been making between focused and diffuse kinds of consciousness has made me wonder whether it's possible that intensity is, in some sense, conserved, and that what we call low intensity is just a diffuse awareness, that is, with our attention scattered. But I'm inclined to think not. It certainly feels to me as though some states of mind are inherently more intense than others. It's easy to think of examples of exceptionally intense experiences, sleeping and waking, but perhaps the hypnagogic sate, on the edge of sleep is a place where we regularly encounter a state of low intensity. It can feel as if there's lots of random business going on in my brain though, so maybe it's more of a weaking of the ability to remember than to experience as such. I'm not sure. One thing I find especially curious about hypnagogia is that sometimes when I come round a bit from this state and ask my brain, "what was I just thinking about?" it offers more than one apparently unrelated but equally plausible possibility. Could it be that there are these rehearsals of potentially conscious activity going on all the time, but when we're wide awake, one train of thought usually dwarfs the others, making it the obvious choice? I have to admit I find a lot of Daniel Dennett's writing quite imprenetrable, maybe his script-editing metaphor is describing something similar.

Grain, granularily. Without any grain, samadhi, smooth undifferentiated consciousness, not distinguished into different qualities. Most of our everyday consciousness, even if we can split a complex experience up into the simplest elements we can imagine, is a long way from this, having lots of fine distinctions. But even here, we might feel in some way bad, for example, without being about to quite say whether this is fear or shame or anger or sadness (or indigestion!), especially if this isn't a very intense experience; but with more grain, we can identify specific kinds of anxiety that feel very different from each other. I don't think low grain automatically goes with low intensity though; I've had intense experiences while tripping that included sensations I could equally well describe as visual or tactile, as if there's some common root shared by these senses, some level at which any choice of what to call it (sight or touch) would be arbitrary because it's as much one as the other. I suppose samadhi would be the common root shared by all experience, like the high energy states in physics where fundamental forces are unified.

Quality. Perhaps corresponds to what you call flavor. I'm thinking of what makes hearing different from sight, purely in terms of experience, i.e. disregarding what we believe about the relationship of our seeing and hearing experiences to the world. Or what makes thought different from sensation, just in terms of how it is for us to think or sense. Or what makes euphoria subjectively different from dysphoria, or red from green, aside from what we think about their causes and differences in our behaviour.

 

[ikos9lives]

That's a good question. I don't think we can grasp what consciousness is like for something of a different nature than us. I sometimes wonder whether we can even completely grasp what consciousness is like for somebody else. When I'm petting my dogs I ask this question all the time. I try to imagine if I were having their conscious experience. And yet I can't, because the whole time I'm thinking sentences in my head, and trying to comprehend it with my intellect, which they don't even have. Thomas Nagel famously asked it in his article, http://organizations.utep.edu/Portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf" which you may find interesting.

You also raise a good question about what it would be like to be "more conscious". Angels, I suppose, are more conscious in a sense. At least, they have different consciousness. Since we are by nature tied to the senses and our bodies, it's hard to imagine being a pure intellect with absolutely no senses at all ever. I suppose you sort of can do it when you get really into a math problem or theoretical book and you forget about everything. Interesting stuff though.

 

[nismaratwork]

This has always puzzled me, but it's not a proper medical question... you guys seems capable of rendering interesting opinions however. Take the case of those with damage that renders them unable to form new long-term memories. Their capacity to learn and reflect has been curtailed, but otherwise they're more frozen in place than anything else. Are they, less conscious, or even experiencing a kind of living death compared to others? If you can only reflect and elaborate on what has already been experienced, and the results of that introspection is erased within seconds or minutes... what are you?

 

[Galteeth]

I've been thinking in terms of three coordinates: intensity, grain, quality. Maybe focus would be another one for the list.

Grain, granularily. Without any grain, samadhi, smooth undifferentiated consciousness, not distinguished into different qualities. Most of our everyday consciousness, even if we can split a complex experience up into the simplest elements we can imagine, is a long way from this, having lots of fine distinctions. But even here, we might feel in some way bad, for example, without being about to quite say whether this is fear or shame or anger or sadness (or indigestion!), especially if this isn't a very intense experience; but with more grain, we can identify specific kinds of anxiety that feel very different from each other. I don't think low grain automatically goes with low intensity though; I've had intense experiences while tripping that included sensations I could equally well describe as visual or tactile, as if there's some common root shared by these senses, some level at which any choice of what to call it (sight or touch) would be arbitrary because it's as much one as the other. I suppose samadhi would be the common root shared by all experience, like the high energy states in physics where fundamental forces are unified.
.

This sounds closer to what I meant by flavor. Or rather, the opposite of this. An interesting idea, but I am not so sure a "planck unit" of consciousness exists. I think information complexity, or interpretation of the complexity of information as related to time somehow, is fundamentally associated with the emergence of consciousness.

 

[Galteeth]

That's a good question. I don't think we can grasp what consciousness is like for something of a different nature than us. I sometimes wonder whether we can even completely grasp what consciousness is like for somebody else. When I'm petting my dogs I ask this question all the time. I try to imagine if I were having their conscious experience. And yet I can't, because the whole time I'm thinking sentences in my head, and trying to comprehend it with my intellect, which they don't even have. Thomas Nagel famously asked it in his article, http://organizations.utep.edu/Portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf" which you may find interesting.

I can sort of imagine it. Try to think back to when you were very very young and your reactions to things were intensely emotional. There may be some level of "thought" but it's probably only on the level of an immediate short term visualization, no words. Ever been on a rollercoaster ride when you were young that you were quite frightened of? I imagine being a dog is somewhat similar.

 

[Rasalhague]

Take the case of those with damage that renders them unable to form new long-term memories. Their capacity to learn and reflect has been curtailed, but otherwise they're more frozen in place than anything else. Are they, less conscious, or even experiencing a kind of living death compared to others? If you can only reflect and elaborate on what has already been experienced, and the results of that introspection is erased within seconds or minutes... what are you?

Suppose I find myself walking along a certain road, at twilight, feeling , say, glee. My memory would probably tell me where I was and why, how I got there, where I intend to go, whether it's morning or evening, and what thoughts, actions or events may have led to this emotion. If I couldn't make new long-term-memories, that wouldn't necessarily prevent me from experiencing a similarly complex range of impressions, albeit more confusing ones. In some cases, it may even intensify the overall experience, for example, if my confusion made me scared or angry, or just because of the continued novelty. By the "more conscious = capable of more elaborate, coherent thought" definition, this condition would presumably be rated "less conscious". Simply on a scale of intensity of consciousness as such, I don't think it'd be necessarily more or less; it would depend on the circumstance, the individual and whatever other impairment their brain may have undergone.

Our brains do many other things besides make us conscious. And normal, everyday, healthy consciousness is richly varied. Unless we've experienced, or read/heard accounts of, simpler states of consciousness (triggered by drugs, meditation, brain injury, spontaneous mystical experiences or whatever), it may be hard to imagine that conscousness could exists without the trappings of complex introspective thought, personal history, a sense of having/being a body and self distinct from the rest of the universe... But, strange to say, as far as the raw experience of a moment goes, these really are optional extras.

On the other hand, although I don't think even amnesia severe enough to box us into a few seconds's worth of continuity would necessarily diminish the intensity of consciousness, Benjamin Libet's famous experiments do seem to show that the activity in the brain needed to generate an experience takes a significant fraction of a second, without which, nothing. But at this scale, the natural match between the sequence of events in the word and the sequence of events in the mind breaks down, which is a bit tricky to think about...

This sounds closer to what I meant by flavor. Or rather, the opposite of this. An interesting idea, but I am not so sure a "planck unit" of consciousness exists. I think information complexity, or interpretation of the complexity of information as related to time somehow, is fundamentally associated with the emergence of consciousness.

It might be useful here to distinguish between complexity of information processing by the brain, and complexity of experience. If consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, we could imagine that it would take a lot of complex activity in the brain to support even the most (subjectively) simple experience. And even if the answer to the mind-body-problem did lie in fundamental physics, it could still be that subjectively simple intensity stemmed from some kind of objective complexity.

 

[apeiron]

Are they, less conscious, or even experiencing a kind of living death compared to others?

In fact, if memory serves me right, the UK sufferer subject of a TV doco did say exactly that - it is like being the living dead. So not a feeling of being less conscious, but of a consciousness with a big black gap which would normally be filled with that gentle, orienting penumbra of the recent past, recent thoughts, intentions, events, etc.

It would be a broken consciousness because every moment would have to built from scratch - some kind of sense of how did I get here, what should I be doing next - the smooth flow of intentionality and predictability we take for granted.

[Edit]: I found the quote. The case was CW, an English music producer. He said he must have been dead for many years and just come back to life minutes earlier. Then exclaimed: "Why the bloody hell can't they do anything to make conscious?" Spooky, eh?

 

[apeiron]

Benjamin Libet's famous experiments do seem to show that the activity in the brain needed to generate an experience takes a significant fraction of a second, without which, nothing.

Libet's work and much other neuroscience does indeed show it take circa 200ms for a habit-level awareness of the world, and circa 500ms for an attention-level awareness, but the reason we experience no gaps (mostly) is because we anticipate the world anyway.

The brain actually works by predicting its input (and then reworking things only after mismatches or prediction are detected).