Sam Harris On Defining Consciousness

[Rhondazvous]

Go dig one up and see what it does.  Just as you don't actually have to understand -how- a telephone works in order to determine that it -does- work, you don't have to understand -how- a worms (or any) consciousness works to see that it -does- work.

Are you saying response to stimuli = consciousness? When you go to the doctor and he hits your knee with a rubber hammer, it responds. Does that mean your knee is conscious?

Would a scientific mind be satisfied with knowing that something works and have no curiosity about how it works?

[Angrboda]

In any case, there is a working definition of consciousness.  The state of being aware, either of ones environment or ones self.  We test examples against that definition by response.  If we observe a response to enviromental stimuli we posit that the example is aware, that it is conscious, but we have greater requirements for -self- awareness.  Even greater still for sentience.

I don't think it's necessarily the case that being aware implies being conscious. Consciousness is, if nothing else, a bundle of functions that creates a construct which in humans we call the conscious mind. This is to deny that our perceptions just pipe themselves to an aware center; that center is an illusion created by the construct. What ties it all together then? We don't currently know, but I think it would be a mistake to conclude that animals that behave as though they are aware are necessarily conscious. I suspect that consciousness is a specific set of behaviors that arose after the ability to be aware of one's environment and respond to it.

For me, the phenomena that tell me the most about consciousness is the slippery unreality that exists between being asleep and being awake. This unreality doesn't appear unreal at that time, though once we become fully aroused, some of it's contents can be seen to be incoherent and make no sense. This is the brain that is conscious, yet not fully coordinated. It can make the unreal seem real. This is also a feature of the awake mind - it can make the unreal seem real - it didn't lose that ability in coming to lucidity. It's just being used to create multiple stable illusions. It is these illusions which we call consciousness. And I think it would be a mistake not to presume that this ability to construct the set of illusions emerged largely fully formed at some point in evolutionary history.

[Whateverist]

Am currently reading Sam Harris book “Spirituality Without God.” Harris talks about the difficulty of defining consciousness.  I know there are different degrees of consciousness, but I think he’s talking about basic consciousness as a province of sentient beings.  It is, I think, the difference between a “being” and a mere organism or object.

As Harris says, we know what consciousness isbut simply cannot define it the same way we define a concept like fluidity (the movement of like molecules.) I think the main problem is the definitions we use in our efforts to define consciousness are not exclusive enough in a world of high technology. What could we say? Is consciousness memory? Does having awareness make one conscious? Maybe it should be qualified as self-awareness. . but can it be said that  a computer program that is able to detext  foreign input and distinguish it from native code is self-aware?  As the guardians of human dignity, we want to define consciousness in a way that excludes Windows,  and none of the above indicators does that. What’s more, as Harris points out, they can only be verified subjectively. I know that I am conscious because I know that I am conscious. But how can we prove, using the scientific method, that others have consciousness?

I look at consciousness, like most other constructs, as a spectrum. Modern computers are conscious, in a sense, but to such a low extent compared to humans that it'd be meaningless to consider them as such.

I disagree.  I think consciousness is all about "being" and not at all about "doing".  Whatever it is your computer can "do" has fuck all to do with whether any consciousness is being experienced by the computer.  We know we ourselves are conscious.  But we can only speculate as to what markers indicate the presence of consciousness.  The markers of consciousness, always in dispute, are never consciousness itself.

[Foxaèr]

People who want to over philosophize consciousness are idiots.

[Whateverist]

People who want to over philosophize consciousness are idiots.

The alternative being .. ?  What exactly do you think is meant by "consciousness"?  Beware idiots who wish to tread into big ideas without any philosophic perspective at all.  Wanting everything to be as simple as beans will not make them so.

[The Grand Nudger]

@Little Lunch.  There are certainly things that you do and attribute to your consciousness that are analogous to a plant turning to the sun, sure.  Doesn't mean that this is -all- that's going on, and it certainly seems like there's a bit more than auxin at play in our brains.  Amusingly, we're not 100% on how plants turn to the sun, btw.

@Rhonda.  No, but that response to stimuli is the only demonstrable yardstick we have at present, and while it may not be all there is to it, it's a start.  Response is, after all, how you'd determine that I am a sentient, self aware organism.

@Jorg.  I think that it does, though, obviously I don't think that response implies self awareness or anything even remotely close to human consciousness.  I think that if we explored the idea that response does not imply awareness, for example, you'd have to make staggering number of special considerations - similarly, that awareness does not imply consciousness.  Perhaps you're right, it would be unfortunate for knowledge if you were, though, imo...lol. I think that maybe you have greater requirements for consciousness that we don't share (and whatever it is you call the bar for consciousness I probably have a different term in mind for, but a similar idea). I'm willing to accept that awareness is the bare minimum. If something is aware, if it presents an effect which we attribute to awareness, I'll call it conscious - though that doesn't really move the chains very far for me.

@Whateverist, When you do thought, you call it being, for some reason.....which I think is fine...but to deny something else that presents a similar effect, which you've used to determine "being" in yourself.... is dicey. Is there some reason that you should "be" whereas the other stuff is only "doing"? Are you "being", whilst a dog is "doing"? How about you vs a mollusk? Maybe you -and- the dog are being but the mollusk is only doing? How could I make that determination.....how have you? Don't get me wrong, I think there's more going on in your head than their is in a dogs head, or a mollusks entire body.......but this division between being and doing seems to be groundless without elaboration. "being" is an easily equivocated word, after all. You're busily "being human", a rock is busily "being a rock", but you're doing some other sort of "being" that the rock isn't, and "doing" is in a similar predicament.....and I think we'd both agree to that. Either way, suppose there was some difference, if there's no way to determine what that is, it's a difference that makes no difference, imo.

[Rhondazvous]

In this discussion on this topic and at this point I see no practical benefit.

Whenever I think a topic is not worth talking about, I generally stay out of the discussion. Do you think the participants in this discussion have carried it on for 3 pages because they aren't intelligent enough to realize it's not worth talking about and need you to tell them? I ask this with all due respect to someone I do respect.

[Mudhammam]

People who want to over philosophize consciousness are idiots.

Under philosophizing is a straight path to the universal and individual souls much utilized in ancient and current theology. So, take your pick.

[Foxaèr]

Under philosophizing is a straight path to the universal and individual souls much utilized in ancient and current theology.

Ummm, no.

Reason is reason without philosophy.

[Whateverist]

Don't get me wrong, I think there's more going on in your head than their is in a dogs head, or a mollusks entire body.......but this division between being and doing seems to be groundless without elaboration.

Interesting though that you are the one who will always take the side of will as illusion. So surely consciousness is not something we're doing. At best -from a determinist's POV- consciousness is something that is happening to which we, rightly or wrongly, stake a claim as willers. Seems to me you should be on my side on this one.

Regardless, consciousness is hardly a naive intuition. It is the most invisible of attributes. If you wanted to bring it to someone's attention who did not have the concept, what would you point to? Consciousness is basically noticing things and realizing that we are noticing them. To me that is much too passive to describe as an act. So I call it the realization of a state of being.

..  "being" is an easily equivocated word, after all.  You're busily "being human", a rock is busily "being a rock", but you're doing some other sort of "being" that the rock isn't, and "doing" is in a similar predicament.....and I think we'd both agree to that.  Either way, suppose there was some difference, if there's no way to determine what that is, it's a difference that makes no difference, imo.

The difference seems to have something to do with perceiving oneself to be both an object in the world and also a subject with a particular point of view. It is doubtful that a rock perceives anything at all. The only one we know for sure that has consciousness is just our self. I naturally and usefully infer that those objects in the world that look like me are also subjects with their own point of view. If someone could unplug me from the world I know a la matrix, then I might realize I'd made some misattributions but it wouldn't be a mind blower on the same level as thinking that I my experience of myself was somehow counterfeit. The existence of illusions does not undermine ourselves as subjects, just the attributions we make regarding the world. Consciousness has more to do with our subject-hood than with what we are as objects.