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On defining consciousness

Lost Ego

Lost Ego

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Defining consciousness....

Disclosure: I'm going to be including my revised definition in 2 seperate papers for my philosophy class. My revised definition of consciousness may include your opinions and by posting in this thread you are agreeing to allow me to do so.

My professor requested these 3 criteria: 1) do more than just cite wikipedia and 2) dont use any synonyms and give an actual definition and 3) dig deeper the nature of consciousness.

My definition: (exerpt from my rough draft)
"Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, sentience, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind."
To summarize what was said above is that consciousness is simply being present in this moment in first person point of view, at this point in space and at this exact time - we exist at the intersection of the external and the internal. Being conscious of the external world can be looked at as if we're simply watching a giant movie that is being inserted in through your sense organs(being aware of the material). Being conscious of your internal world can simply mean being mentally there and narrating the movie(being aware of the thing that is thinking)."

Feel free to expand on my definition or give your own take on these ambigious word: consciousness.
 
How many fingers am i holding up? Is 2 + 2 still 4? That's how you know. I'm gunna have to think for a while to give you a legitimate answer. IMHO I think everyone's going to have something different to say.
 
I think one can have conscious experiences without a sense of concrete identity or having external/internal boundaries. Just think of mystical or psychedelic experiences. Also, what would you say consciousness is not? Try to define it negatively. Your definition seems more like attention then consciousness, with the latter being the broader encompassing topic.

My definition of consciousness is that its the qualitative feeling of being in a present moment.
 
The ability to represent a manifold "within" unity, and the ability to express a unity "as" a manifold.
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This seems an absurd definition, but think about it carefully.

In each act of consciousness, the subject is "aware" of the object. In this act of awareness there must be some kind of unity, connection or identity between subject & object. On the other hand, in order to be truly consciousness, the subject must also be able to differentiate oneself from the object of consciousness. This differentiation generates subjectivity/objectivity and consciousness itself. But equiprimordial, one must also always maintain the unity with the world, because else one is just a solipsistic mind.

I think the double-process of unification/differentiation is the "condition of possibility" of every act of consciousness. Other definitions (e.g. conceptual representation, being affected by the outside world, etc.) are derivative definitions.
 
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consciousness arises from your brains interpretation of sensory data, when the brain notices the pattern that you are always the viewer of these experiences of data, it creates consciousness through memories.

i don't think it has much to do with 'now' consciousness is just you becoming aware of yourself and from your brain interprating data where you are always in it. You don't have consciousness outside of your perspective so i think that makes sense. Correct me if i'm wrong of course.
 
imo

consciousness is a unit of combined parts which together form a function which is greater than the sum of each individual component.

this includes simple organisms as well as complex.
this includes non-organic material as well as organic.

the behaviour of the mentally impaired, or brain injury sufferers, and the behaviour of large groups of people, and the behaviour of individual animals, and groups of animals, all of these suggest to me that consciousness is far more than the phenomenon we as healthy humans experience.

one example.
bill is completely healthy. john suffers from a brain injury which impairs his ability to make detailed new memories.
they both have to navigate to a new address using a map.
bill uses him mental capacities and a map to find the address.
though a strict adherence to a process where john uses a notebook to record information in detail, along with a map, he is also capable of finding that address.
in the function of finding the address, the speed of them differing aside, what is the difference between bill's use of memory, and john's use of a notebook? they both serve the higher function, which is in this case finding an address, equally well. that is to say they both get there.

similarly to physical prosthetics restoring mobility, the notebook in this case serves as a mental prosthetic restoring mental capacity. it forms as part of the unit of the individual, who would otherwise not be able to so function.
 
Ugh my role in my group is counter-arguement. Why did we have to pick materialism? It's so hard trying to argue against materialism. I'm struggling to link theories of consciousness back to immaterial things. I took the approach that science cannot tell us where consciousness exists and left it there. Where can i go with this? Can you guys think of arguments for why consciousness is not physical?

Morpheus19 said:
This is correct. I recommend looking into sartres concept of being-for-itself, which is the term sartre uses for consciousness. It's the best "definition" of consciousness I've come across so far.

This is a good place to start: http://www.mwelzel.de/sartrebeing/#dasfuersichsein
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reading it now, sounds good, thanks morpheus - i think i might source it along with stanford encyclopedia of philosophy's take on the unity of consciousness(what psyduck was talking about :P - no offense psy)

psyduck: btw thanks man, conceptually i'd never really considered the conscious mind as a unity of many smaller experiences. I briefly mentioned in my paper that "the mind is singular and neurons are in the billions" ... "and i'm skeptical because of these incongruencies". You just gave me alot more to write about. <3 u man

rpm said:
I'm just about to go to bed but what I will do is send you some sources and essays I wrote as an undergraduate on the topic. Here is the media file link

I'll give you a proper more well formulated answer tomorrow.
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I'll be looking forward to talking to you rpm, you have some well written papers in that link you sent me. Would you like to look over my outline and maybe help me with the final draft? My professor already graded & commented on the outline and i think i know what direction i'm gonna head... I just have writer's block for the time being o.o'
 
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Can you guys think of arguments for why consciousness is not physical?
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In line with Descartes,

(1)
matter is extension (= has size, spatiality, geometrical figure, weight,...)
thought qua thought or the experiential awareness qua awareness has none of the above properties (i.e. how "big" is your awareness of the red color? how much do your ideas "weigh"? what "geometrical shape" does your feeling of pain have? "where" are you feelings/thought "in space"? etc.)

(2) Two entities have the same nature/essence if and only if they have the same properties/attributes. [REFERENCE]

(1) + (2) => matter qua matter cannot equal consciousness qua consciousness.
 
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A random idea:

Suppose there exists a distinct consciousness that is not physical by nature, and that we are able to observe it and our physical body can talk (move its mouth) about its properties. Then this consciousness must be able to interact with (or exert a force on) matter. Before we can talk about consciousness, our physical brain must make an observation of it. All observations are based on some interaction, and in an interaction between to objects, both exert a force on each other (think Newtons 3rd law, for example).

If the transfer of information between the brain and the non-physical consciousness was unidirectional (brain sends information content to consciousness but not the other way around), we couldn't physically talk about the conscious mind.

Sorry if this made no sense.
 
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