What is the use of consciousness?

[inocente]

That is exactly the question. Is that your conscious mind which decide to post on the net?

I’d say you have one mind, not separate conscious and subconscious minds. If you look at it in terms of adaptation, you have three ways to respond to something:

• A whatever is hard-wired by your genes, such as the pain of touching something hot
• B whatever you have learned, such as language, driving and typing
• C conscious attention

A is very fast but limited to what’s in your genes. B is fast and but limited by prior experience. C is really slow but can handle novel situations.

A and B deal with most things on autopilot, when they can’t C cuts in. B learns by C handling new situations.

C is then the center of conscious attention, which means it isn’t necessarily what makes the decisions, it could be more like a narration.

 

[empther]

I agree that consciousness has a huge potential to experience different things but apparently
what could be experienced is delivered by body,

That has not and could not be proven. Furthermore, our memory, and our contemplation, or past experiences indicate that it’s not only the body that’s involved.

including enjoyment from art, thinking, any kind of desires, etc.

That has not and could not be proven. Furthermore, see my remark above.

The problem of consciousness is that it just allows experiencing and what could be experienced is conditioned to what body/subconsciousness can deliver.

On the contrary, the consciousness, thinking, the operation of the mind, creates experience unknown to the body.
For example,
I spent 19 years thinking about, formulating, editting, and writing Empress Theresa. The whole story was in my head for years before I wrote down a single word. My body knows nothing about this. There was no sensory (name removed by moderator)ut or any other kind of experience.

 

[jimmy]

How about thinking and desires? If we accept that decision is made in subconsciousness then we can accept that thinking and desires also emerge from subconsciousness itself and it is retrieved to consciousness when it is necessary. In fact, this is quite feasible assumption since a decision is made based on reasons and desires which later happen in subconsciousness and the other two also should happen there.

If it is so, then what is the point of consciousness?

Isn’t solely a luxury? I mean if accept that thinking, desires and decisions are made in subconscious mind then we have all the components for an autonomous system. The only problem is that nothing could be experienced without consciousness in another word everything goes into the dark.

The subconscious wouldn’t exist without the conscious mind. Thought and even desire to a large extent, is the product of the conscious mind, even subconscious thoughts. Without the conscious mind there would be no subconscious thought or desire. There might be action, but it would be reducible to reaction.

 

[Bahman]

I’d say you have one mind, not separate conscious and subconscious minds. If you look at it in terms of adaptation, you have three ways to respond to something:

• A whatever is hard-wired by your genes, such as the pain of touching something hot
• B whatever you have learned, such as language, driving and typing
• C conscious attention

A is very fast but limited to what’s in your genes. B is fast and but limited by prior experience. C is really slow but can handle novel situations.

A and B deal with most things on autopilot, when they can’t C cuts in. B learns by C handling new situations.

C is then the center of conscious attention, which means it isn’t necessarily what makes the decisions, it could be more like a narration.

I understand your point but there is a problem here, namely what control each of these responses come to action?

Moreover one has to define consciousness as well. Lets see what are those definitions:

1. Consciousness is the ability to experience
2. Consciousness is the ability to experience and be responsive to environment

In first case consciousness is inert and cannot cause or initiate an action. So the question is what is use of it? In another word what is the use of experiencing at all. We could be all philosophical zombi functioning well without experiencing anything.

In second case consciousness can initiate an action but the question is what bring consciousness into focus on a specific problem since we are normally dealing with several problems. This cannot be done with consciousness itself since it require a loop/self-cause so what option is left is another mind namely subconsciousness does this job. This however seems to lead to infinite regression unless we accept that loop/self-cause is possible which lead to an anomalous entity. Nevertheless, why consciousness should lead to experience is still subject of question even in this case.

 

[Bahman]

That has not and could not be proven. Furthermore, our memory, and our contemplation, or past experiences indicate that it’s not only the body that’s involved.
That has not and could not be proven. Furthermore, see my remark above.

You need to perform a surgery and you are given a medication to be unconscious for several hours and you become unconscious. This is only chemical which can only act on your body hence your consciousness is gone. You are depress, you get the correct medicine and you feel fine. The impact of drugs on our experience cannot be denied.

On the contrary, the consciousness, thinking, the operation of the mind, creates experience unknown to the body.
For example,
I spent 19 years thinking about, formulating, editting, and writing Empress Theresa. The whole story was in my head for years before I wrote down a single word. My body knows nothing about this. There was no sensory (name removed by moderator)ut or any other kind of experience.

If you had a accident during these 19 years and accident damage the part of your brain for long memory then you could not retrieve the story at all. That means what you know is memorized inside your brain. The same applies to thinking, editing, writing etc.

In simple word what we experience is delivered by body. The question which is left what is the use of experiencing things if body can perform its job well?

 

[Bahman]

The subconscious wouldn’t exist without the conscious mind. Thought and even desire to a large extent, is the product of the conscious mind, even subconscious thoughts. Without the conscious mind there would be no subconscious thought or desire. There might be action, but it would be reducible to reaction.

Let me ask you this question: What is the value of experiencing things? If we accept that conscious mind is the ability to experience then what would be the value of it? I am asking this question since our mind performs many actions at a time hence we are partially aware of a part of it. In simple word, what the point of being aware of an action when the action itself perform what is needed?

 

[inocente]

I understand your point but there is a problem here, namely what control each of these responses come to action?

Moreover one has to define consciousness as well. Lets see what are those definitions:

1. Consciousness is the ability to experience
2. Consciousness is the ability to experience and be responsive to environment

In first case consciousness is inert and cannot cause or initiate an action. So the question is what is use of it? In another word what is the use of experiencing at all. We could be all philosophical zombi functioning well without experiencing anything.

In second case consciousness can initiate an action but the question is what bring consciousness into focus on a specific problem since we are normally dealing with several problems. This cannot be done with consciousness itself since it require a loop/self-cause so what option is left is another mind namely subconsciousness does this job. This however seems to lead to infinite regression unless we accept that loop/self-cause is possible which lead to an anomalous entity. Nevertheless, why consciousness should lead to experience is still subject of question even in this case.

When an autopilot can’t handle something, it bleats for attention. In the same way, when a learned response can’t deal with something, it bleats and your center of consciousness (“you”) moves. “You” are unaware of the bleating because it happens before your awareness moves to it.

I don’t like making analogies with computers, but think of your conscious attention as like a programmer. The self-awareness is needed to write the programs.

For instance, ever driven home thinking of a work problem and then realized you don’t even remember which route you took? Whereas if anything out of the ordinary had happened, your autopilot would have bleated and your attention would move away from your work problem to what’s on the road in front of you.

Or take Sullenberger and the landing on the Hudson. He only managed that because his training had built-up lots of “autopilots” in his head, so his conscious awareness only needed to stitch them together rather than trying to program the whole deal from scratch. But without conscious awareness he could never have learned the autopilots, let alone use them to deal with something he had never done before.

 

[jimmy]

Let me ask you this question: What is the value of experiencing things? If we accept that conscious mind is the ability to experience then what would be the value of it? I am asking this question since our mind performs many actions at a time hence we are partially aware of a part of it. In simple word, what the point of being aware of an action when the action itself perform what is needed?

You might as well ask, ‘what is the point of action.’ From a philosophical point of view, action is meaningless without experience. If there is no being that is aware, it doesn’t matter whether things continue to exist or they cease to exist. It doesn’t matter whether the action is performed or not. Either way it is the same.

From the perspective of psychology, awareness and experience is the basis for learning. Through it you learn that some things are worth doing, and others are not. Awareness is what produces the personality. If I decide to practice the guitar, it isn’t enough that I do it. I have to be aware of what I am doing, otherwise I will learn nothing and continue to make the same mistakes. I won’t learn the relationship between different sounds either. The musical scale would mean nothing. Also, there would be no creative aspect. The result would be ugly sounding music.

 

[Bahman]

When an autopilot can’t handle something, it bleats for attention. In the same way, when a learned response can’t deal with something, it bleats and your center of consciousness (“you”) moves. “You” are unaware of the bleating because it happens before your awareness moves to it.

I don’t like making analogies with computers, but think of your conscious attention as like a programmer. The self-awareness is needed to write the programs.

For instance, ever driven home thinking of a work problem and then realized you don’t even remember which route you took? Whereas if anything out of the ordinary had happened, your autopilot would have bleated and your attention would move away from your work problem to what’s on the road in front of you.

Or take Sullenberger and the landing on the Hudson. He only managed that because his training had built-up lots of “autopilots” in his head, so his conscious awareness only needed to stitch them together rather than trying to program the whole deal from scratch. But without conscious awareness he could never have learned the autopilots, let alone use them to deal with something he had never done before.

This I understand, but what causes bleating? If I am unaware of bleating then it means that it happens in subconsciousness. In another word, we cannot deny that that happens in a part of mind -which part?- a part we are not aware of it, so called subconsciousness. All things that we learn and we do automatically are handled by subconscious mind, like autopilot. Moreover what consciousness can offer when a situation cannot be handled in autopilot?

 

[Bahman]

You might as well ask, ‘what is the point of action.’ From a philosophical point of view, action is meaningless without experience. If there is no being that is aware, it doesn’t matter whether things continue to exist or they cease to exist. It doesn’t matter whether the action is performed or not. Either way it is the same.

Action can happen as they do happen for a jelly fish which has no nerve system as a result of causality yet no consciousness hence it could apply to us but in more complex manner since we have a nerve system.

From the perspective of psychology, awareness and experience is the basis for learning. Through it you learn that some things are worth doing, and others are not. Awareness is what produces the personality. If I decide to practice the guitar, it isn’t enough that I do it. I have to be aware of what I am doing, otherwise I will learn nothing and continue to make the same mistakes. I won’t learn the relationship between different sounds either. The musical scale would mean nothing. Also, there would be no creative aspect. The result would be ugly sounding music.

I have four questions here:

1. Why things should come to consciousness in order to be learnt?
2. Why things should come to consciousness to be judged? Like good music, bad music.
3. Why we should focus and be in state of consciousness/super-consciousness when we think or decide?
4. Do consciousness really does something or things are brought to consciousness as a matter of only taste. I mean when you listen to music, sounds are collected in subconsciousness mind and it is judged there as well, hence we can only experience them and have a sense of them when it is brought to consciousness.

 

[empther]

Bahman wrote:

If you had a accident during these 19 years and accident damage the part of your brain for long memory then you could not retrieve the story at all. That means what you know is memorized inside your brain. The same applies to thinking, editing, writing etc.

In simple word what we experience is delivered by body.

This is merely deceptive quibbling. Typical.
We remember what we think about. So, my conscious wrote memory on my brain, but my neurons did not create the story, which was not and could not have been part of my experience. :bigyikes:

 

[jimmy]

Action can happen as they do happen for a jelly fish which has no nerve system as a result of causality yet no consciousness hence it could apply to us but in more complex manner since we have a nerve system.

Jellyfish do have a nervous system, even though it is a very simple one. A jelly fish can act, but does it matter? What is the purpose of action for a jellyfish? Survival? Is survival any different than death in the end?

Besides that, what kind of actions is a jellyfish performing? It pretty much gathers food, reproduces, and defends itself. That is all.

I have four questions here:

1. Why things should come to consciousness in order to be learnt?
2. Why things should come to consciousness to be judged? Like good music, bad music.
3. Why we should focus and be in state of consciousness/super-consciousness when we think or decide?
4. Do consciousness really does something or things are brought to consciousness as a matter of only taste. I mean when you listen to music, sounds are collected in subconsciousness mind and it is judged there as well, hence we can only experience them and have a sense of them when it is brought to consciousness.

1. Because there can be no improvement or growth without learning. Learning only occurs in a conscious person. There is no such thing as unconscious learning. If. I read a book and don’t pay attention to what I am reading I won’t remember any of it. Pavlova dogs would have never learned to associate certain stimuli with food, unless they were aware. Bandura’a ideas of learning through imitation are dependent on awareness. Learning can’t occur without it.
2. Are you asking what is the value of judgement? It is good to be able to distinguish between good acts and bad ones. If you are asking why it needs to be judged by the conscious mind, the answer is the same as 1; there is no judgement without consciousness.
3. Because that is the only way you will ever decide anything. There is no decision without consciousness. Without it there is only reaction to stimuli. There isn’t really a subconscious thought process. There is no subconscious logic or reasoning. It takes conscious effort to reason and use logic.
4. As I said above, the subconscious doesn’t exist without the conscious mind. The conscious mind creates the subconscious through forgotten memories and experiences. The subconscious cant judge anything.because judgement is the result of reason.

Consciousness is necessary for everything, not just matters of taste.

 

[empther]

I mean when you listen to music, sounds are collected in subconsciousness mind ** who said that? where did that come from? ]** and it is judged there as well, hence we can only experience them and have a sense of them when it is brought to consciousness.** who said that? where did that come from? ]**

You see, friends,
if you’re pushing the atheist agenda, or otherwise trying to cast doubt on what we all know is true,
you can pronounce any false idea you want and get away with it.
And so, you can keep a useless thread like this going forever. Just keep throwing out false ideas.

 

[jimmy]

You need to perform a surgery and you are given a medication to be unconscious for several hours and you become unconscious. This is only chemical which can only act on your body hence your consciousness is gone. You are depress, you get the correct medicine and you feel fine. The impact of drugs on our experience cannot be denied.

If you had a accident during these 19 years and accident damage the part of your brain for long memory then you could not retrieve the story at all. That means what you know is memorized inside your brain. The same applies to thinking, editing, writing etc.

In simple word what we experience is delivered by body. The question which is left what is the use of experiencing things if body can perform its job well?

The whole point we are making is that the body can’t perform the job well, or even perform it at all without the conscious mind. Awareness is necessary for all action.

 

[Bahman]

1. Because there can be no improvement or growth without learning. Learning only occurs in a conscious person. There is no such thing as unconscious learning. If. I read a book and don’t pay attention to what I am reading I won’t remember any of it. Pavlova dogs would have never learned to associate certain stimuli with food, unless they were aware. Bandura’a ideas of learning through imitation are dependent on awareness. Learning can’t occur without it.
2. Are you asking what is the value of judgement? It is good to be able to distinguish between good acts and bad ones. If you are asking why it needs to be judged by the conscious mind, the answer is the same as 1; there is no judgement without consciousness.
3. Because that is the only way you will ever decide anything. There is no decision without consciousness. Without it there is only reaction to stimuli. There isn’t really a subconscious thought process. There is no subconscious logic or reasoning. It takes conscious effort to reason and use logic.
4. As I said above, the subconscious doesn’t exist without the conscious mind. The conscious mind creates the subconscious through forgotten memories and experiences. The subconscious cant judge anything.because judgement is the result of reason.

Consciousness is necessary for everything, not just matters of taste.

These answers everybody knows using intuition, but intuition could be wrong as Libet experiment suggest.

Let consider the book reading example to see if we could go anywhere from here. You are reading a book and suddenly you realize that you were reading half of a page without being conscious about what you were reading, meaning that you don’t remember what was written there. Of course your consciousness was somewhere else, thinking about your work, other problems, etc. One question arises here:

What does bring consciousness that you were not conscious of what you were reading?

The answer to first question cannot be consciousness itself since it is circular. You cannot say that I become conscious that I was not conscious of reading the book using consciousness unless you accept that consciousness is anomalous. By anomalous I mean that there is a self-caused spark on your consciousness that make you conscious that you were not conscious of reading the book. Whether consciousness could be anomalous is subject of discussion. You could say that was subconsciousness that brought my attention that my focus is not on reading the book then inform consciousness that I was not reading the book properly which is in agreement with Libet experiment. You could also say that attention itself is something which move on different issues based on how subconsciousness and consciousness decide. Decision is an anomalous entity and we can discuss it if you wish. This anomalous entity we cannot avoid from it, you either assign it to consciousness or subconsciousness or both. The idea in here is if consciousness is not anomalous then it is inert hence it cannot affect itself therefore it cannot affect anything else so it is matter of taste. In another word if we accept that the sole duty of consciousness is to brought an event to experience then it is inert since the event itself has a causal effect.

 

[Bahman]

Bahman wrote:
This is merely deceptive quibbling. Typical.

It is not deceptive quibbling. It is called reality.

We remember what we think about. So, my conscious wrote memory on my brain, but my neurons did not create the story, which was not and could not have been part of my experience. :bigyikes:

So your mind cannot handle memory, how about thinking? How mind can possibly perform thinking without having access to what is called knowledge which is part of memory itself? So once memory is lost, you cannot remember your book, you cannot think, since your long memory is damaged so you cannot collect new knowledge and old knowledge is lost. So you tell me what you could do as an intellectual being.

 

[Bahman]

You see, friends,
if you’re pushing the atheist agenda, or otherwise trying to cast doubt on what we all know is true,
you can pronounce any false idea you want and get away with it.
And so, you can keep a useless thread like this going forever. Just keep throwing out false ideas.

Please read about subconscious mind here Subconscious

If you like I can invite you to a simple example to say what is duty of sub/consciousness mind are. Assume that you are listening to music while you are reading a book. You cannot experience both music and the content of book at the same time but one at a time when your focus switch from one to another, you then become conscious of content of book or music as your focus switch. Both information however is brought to subconsciousness itself yet it could not lead to a knowledge since it is not centre of focus. Consciousness mind is inert if we accept that the its whole duty is bring an event to experience since the event itself has it is causal effect and experiencing cannot add more hence experiencing is inert.

 

[Bahman]

The whole point we are making is that the body can’t perform the job well, or even perform it at all without the conscious mind. Awareness is necessary for all action.

The whole point around Libet experience is that decision is made prior to experience of decision which the later take place in conscious mind. In other word decision is a subconscious product hence conscious mind is inert.

 

[inocente]

This I understand, but what causes bleating? If I am unaware of bleating then it means that it happens in subconsciousness. In another word, we cannot deny that that happens in a part of mind -which part?- a part we are not aware of it, so called subconsciousness. All things that we learn and we do automatically are handled by subconscious mind, like autopilot. Moreover what consciousness can offer when a situation cannot be handled in autopilot?

When an electronic autopilot determines that (name removed by moderator)uts have gone out of the bounds for which it was designed, it bleats. Same for us.

As I said, conscious awareness is how we learn. There is only one mind, as the Wiki article says: In psychology, the subconscious is the part of consciousness that is not currently in focal awareness.

 

[Bahman]

When an electronic autopilot determines that (name removed by moderator)uts have gone out of the bounds for which it was designed, it bleats. Same for us.

As I said, conscious awareness is how we learn. There is only one mind, as the Wiki article says: In psychology, the subconscious is the part of consciousness that is not currently in focal awareness.

I think we have problem with definition of sub/consciousness: Consciousness is the mind ability to experience things. The rest of mental activity I call subconsciousness.

Based on this definition, focal point of awareness -which differ from consciousness- is always ahead of consciousness as Libet experiment support. In another word I become conscious of a decision after decision is made. In the same manner, I become conscious of a thought process after thought is processed. There is no way to synchronize these mental activities together since one is about functioning and the other is experiencing the outcome. Consciousness on a specific topic always appears after the focal point of awareness is switched to the current topic.

Do you think that consciousness as it is defined happens after, at the same time or before focal point of awareness has changed?