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There's no such thing as a subjectively perceived "contentless" consciousness, nor is there such thing as a subjectively perceived unconsciousness (aside from a time-disconnect).
Thus, there's no such thing as a subjectively perceived consciousness, either. The concept is entirely imaginary or speculative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkl sem ( talk • contribs) 07:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
consciousness is subjectivity itself. it is the dreamer aware of his dream.
User:Jiohdi|Jiohdi]] (
talk)
22:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Although one of the books (with Libet as coauthor) is listed, the impact of his findings in nowhere to be seen. I also did not notice findings of other psychologists and neurologists reflected in the article. And the picture of consciousness psychologists and neurologists offer is completely different from that one philosophers offer.
I would say that both pictures need to be presented in any encyclopaedia entry. Maybe my website can help: Imagination is Greater than Knowledge.
Damir Ibrisimovic 14:28, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Dear all,
I see that there is not much progress made… Everything seems to be revolving around “hard problem”. Maybe simple opening and closing your eyes can do the trick?
As long we try to squeeze consciousness into our brain we will never be able to resolve this puzzle. Our brain is just an organ for higher processing. It does not contain richness of the world we experience with our eyes open:
Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 01:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Myscience, please explain why you don't think that the text I added contributes to the article. I think that there are at least some points there that would contribute, for example the view that the consciousness is currently asleep and fascinated, and that it can be awakened. I would be happy to revise the paragraph I added, and if you have any suggestions please state them. Anton H 14:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone feel this one deserves to be there:
Though this will certainly offend the person who added the link if they read this, it seems like pure crackpottery to me, and it's very brief. Since it seems to have been added only recently it probably hasn't been reviewed, though I doubt of all articles out there on the web this one would have a place if this were a featured article. I'll let the frequent editors of this article decide whether they want it there or not. Richard001 11:27, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
This consciousness page is quite neuro-scientific... I've moved the spiritual discussion to " Higher consciousness." I think this better serves those who are interested in both the science of consciousness and the spirituality of consciousness. I'm still hoping for replies about disambiguation of consciousness (see below). -- Dylanfly 20:09, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
In the book On Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins defines consciousness as "what it feels like to have a cortex". Could this be worked in to the article? Sancho 06:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
193.10.185.3 15:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the time has come to make this page dis-ambiguous. There is Consciousness, artificial consciousness, Political consciousness, Black Consciousness Movement, consciousness raising, and perhaps more. I'm concerned that this discussion of consciousness overwhelms the other common uses. -- Dylanfly 21:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Besides the question of disambiguation, the big question is what to rename this page on consciousness? Perhaps Human consciousness? Or Consciousness (of self)? Or.... ????? Please speak up, folks. I think there's a rather urgent need to disambiguate, and we'll need a collective effort here. :) -- Dylanfly 13:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I really need to hear from people... please. Consciousness is used so broadly on wikipedia and it makes for a horrible mess. About 100 religious/spiritual articles link here, for example, and most of them are really not related to what's being said here. So I'd like to go through a disambiguation. But what to call this page? Maybe self-conscious being ? Please chime in, friends. -- Dylanfly 18:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to add a video of panelists from the University of Southern California discussing the concept of human consciousness. The link is http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=3783&fID=345 (this does not automatically open the video). Please let me know what you think. ( ResearchChannel 19:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC))
In the interest of disambiguation, I think perhaps we should MERGE the Philosophy of Mind section with said article.
This page is best made into a more strictly neurological view of consciousness, and we could then disambiguate from spiritual consciousness, political consciousness, philosophical views of consciousness, and many, many more. I think that, as it stands, this is not the page that people are looking for when they link from, say, Hare krishna.
The only alternative, as I see it, is to merge religious and political views here, but that would make a very cluttered article. This neurological page is so good as is. Can I hear reactions about disambiguation of consciousness and the proposed removal of philosophical approaches? Cheers, -- Dylanfly 16:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I think the current page steers the sort of general course that is necessary with a subject that is as wide and potentially woolly as "consciousness". It gives people a sort of "taster" for the subject. The link to Philosophy of mind at the beginning of the philosophy section is good and similar links should head all of the sections. Incidently, the philosophy section of this article is pretty cool, using Block's diplomatic solution to defuse violent debate. So, I am in favour of leaving the the general structure of the article as it is. Incidently, although I am a great Iain Banks fan, it is not true that most neuroscientists adhere to Dennett's views, whatever gave Edhubbard that idea? I worked in the field for a while and believe that there were a wide range of ideas on consciousness amongst neuroscientists but most agreed with Crick that correlates of consciousness are an adequate basis for research. BTW, the philosophy of mind article is a good intro to the academic philosophy of this subject and might be ruined by a merger, people get hot under the collar about consciousness but are more laid back about academic philosophy of mind. Dypteran 14:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I just had a look at the talk page for philosophy of mind, it is a featured article. This reinforces my view given above: don't spoil a really good article by merging it with an article that is always going to cause contention!. The consciousness article is a good place to deal with passions and disambiguations, it can then link out to the calmer waters of other articles for full treatments of each aspect of the subject. Dypteran 11:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm a little surprised to see sapience in the first sentence as part of the definition of consciousness. It's probably a sufficient condition but it's hardly a necessary one, is it? I see it was added in April 2004 in this revision http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Consciousness&oldid=3273536 I'm tempted to remove it. Any comments on whether it should stay? Brian Fenton 19:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
There is no mention on this page of the views of eastern philosophies on consciousness (samkhya, yoga, vedanta which I am most familiar with, but maybe also buddhist, chinese, etc...). Maybe a paragraph or two should be added for that, especially since their view on consciousness is radically different from western. See my comment on Discussion page for mind. NikNovi 11:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
IMHO, the application to ethics section before the TOC is not relevant to consciousness in general and should be moved to a separate section of the article. Ostracon ( talk) 17:28, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to suggest the following changes:
Now among these figures, it is not those imprinted on the external sense organs, or on the internal surface of the brain, which should be taken to be ideas - but only those which are traced in the spirits on the surface of gland H (where the seat of the imagination and the 'common sense' is located). That is to say, it is only the latter figures which should be taken to be the forms or images which the rational soul united to this machine will consider directly when it imagines some object or perceives it by the senses.
Any thoughts or objections? I know citations are needed, but this is beyond me at the mo. Visual Error ( talk) 01:26, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
What is the word, if there is one (I suspect there isn't), for the ethical position that for an entity to be granted any ethical consideration, it must be conscious? For example, such a person would place no intrinsic value or non-conscious abstract entities like Gaia or biodiversity, or to non-conscious tangible things like rivers, trees and mountains (I suppose there are some who would believe some or even all of those things are conscious, however I can hardly take such views seriously), and dead people and animals (unless you believe in some sort of afterlife; note that future people, and animals for that matter, would most certainly be given consideration as they will exist at some point). Such people, like myself, could still hold a variety of views, from virtue ethics to consequentialism, but would be united by this common foundation (the main philosophy specifically inconsistent with this, or so it seems to me, is deep ecology). Is there any word for such a position, or does anyone know if it has even been discussed anywhere? (It should also be mentioned in the article, of course). On the other hand, if it hasn't I really think someone ought to do so... Richard001 ( talk) 11:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
The experiment has never been replicated independently. Only pigeons trained to pass the mirror test, are able to do so. There is a great youtube video on this, but here are three super credible references.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k728202u2g4517u2/ (your college has to subscribe to this or else you can't view) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T2J-3W3NFT8-7&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f699c7e49a2d90a12b61068234f7c6e3 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-pigeons/
I suggest taking the pigeons out of the consciousness article, as it only brings down the credibility of this article and wp. Also, probably the same pigeon loon has notoriously tried to place this "fact" into other non-related articles about psychology and neurobiology. I don't dare delete it because I dont want any retaliation, so if someone else is brave enough to remove the pigeon outta the list, be my guest. Sentriclecub ( talk) 11:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
The word “consciousness” obviously needs to be disambiguated. Phenomenal consciousness is sensations rich, while psychological or neurological consciousness is hardly so. This everybody can demonstrate to himself/herself by simple opening and closing his/hers eyes.
I would, therefore, suggest that this article makes this distinction and that our colleagues in psychology arena write about consciousness from their perspective. In psychology, this is well researched topic.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 03:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Consciousness is not a point of view
First paragraph, "Consciousness is a point of view"
This seems to stem from a confusion between the first-person perspective and subjectiveness. They are interrelated but not the same thing. I suggest removal of this description.
Confusing Introduction
I personally find Julian Jaynes evolutionary perspective on consciousness to be controversial. Might I suggest that the introduction would be fine without the 'inner space' commentary, which appears confusing to me in comparison to the views of Block and Nagel. However, that consciousness is not cognition is a good point and may be kept in the introduction.
The Role of the Neurosciences
Neuroscience is a broad area building upon several sub-disciplines. The united field of neuroscience was not established until 1971. Since neuroscience also regards aspects of the brain that do not involve mental processes the claim that consciousness is a subject in "neuroscience" is not entirely true. If we consider that:
1. Mental processes are biological features of the brain (Searle)
2. Consciousness involves mental processing (i.e. it probably has something with the brain to do)
3. The sub-discipline of neuroscience that studies mental processes--i.e. the biology of the mind (Gazzaniga)--is "cognitive neuroscience"
..."neuroscience" ought to be replaced with "cognitive neuroscience".
Neither behavioral nor basic neuroscience aims to understand consciousness.
Philosophical Stances on Consciousness
Are "personal identity" and "phenomenology" really stances on consciousness? Personal identity might depend on a concept of consciousness, but consciousness is not the central issue here - except on some views. Phenomenology (in the philosophical sense) refers to an approach to consciousness, however, does not necessarily presume a certain view of consciousness. It is more a method of inquiry than a philosophical stance. It certainly entails certain presuppositions, but it offers in itself no clear-cut answer to the ontological problems of consciousness, without first applying the phenomenological method. Moreover, a textbook would probably introduce dualism, monism, idealism and perhaps even pan-psychism for starters. These are ontological views, and the article may improve in clarity if they be separated from behaviorism, functionalism, identity theory (which has little to do with personal identity) and so on.
Ostracon ( talk) 20:06, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
I love the first line :P It's hard to explain it isn't it LuGiADude ( talk) 18:21, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
IMHO this is a poor way to begin an introduction. The word clearly has a meaning, so give a definition or definitions. Ben Finn ( talk) 17:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
It looks very unprofessional to begin the Lead that way. Of course, we can never attain clear definition of what consciousness is until we know a great deal more about it, but for now, we should stick with a working definition, not this mystical sounding jargon. Stampit ( talk) 15:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm a cognitive neuroscientist, and I would just like to point out that 'Consciousness' is a four-letter word in my research group. We tend to define "cognition" as physiological activity of the nervous system that does not directly effect a change in another organ system ('behavior you can't see', more or less), and we are perfectly able to go about our business without mentioning 'consciousness' or 'awareness' or anything of that sort... we leave those wishy-washy semantic arguments to the philosophers. As scientists, the only evidence we have of these pseudo-notions is from introspection and oral report... neither of which are reliable sources of information. My experience from attending conferences and such is that alot of cognitive neuroscientists share our point-of-view, and those that attempt to study 'consciousness' are definately in the minority and tend to be viewed with heavy skepticism by the field at large. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.132.48 ( talk) 16:12, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
My point is simply that most scientists would argue that 'consciousness' is a purely philosophical issue and science can't even approach it on basic theoretical grounds (at least not yet, given our current empirical abilities). Thus, it's really a matter of taste if you wish to say that split-brain research, mirror tests, blindsight, binocular rivalry, etc. are relevant to 'consciousness'. We simply don't know how these lines of research apply to consciousness, experiential qualia, "rich inner life", or whatever you want to call it. Of course, a few folks out there (i.e.: Koch, Pinker, Dennett, Chalmers) are going to latch on to science that seems to support their models and say that such science is 'the study of consciousness', but the scientists themselves (the good ones, anyway) would never make such an outlandish claim. As it is, the article seems to suggest that there is a real, valid scientific investigation into the 'hard problem of consciousness'... which I feel is misleading. I'm not saying that it doesn't belong in the article, but I'd like to see a caveat or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.132.234 ( talk) 14:58, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Wow, I wish I had time for that. Maybe after the SfN conference. Ironically, a quick search of "consciousness" on PubMed turns up over 23,000 results! Really, though, it's just a straightforward logical argument: by definition (i.e.: the meaning with respect to the general public), consciousness is a personal thing, a "rich inner life" that is not accessable to outside observation. Thus, since it is not observable, it is not studiable by empirical means. Simple as that. I'll track down a source that says the same one of these days... it could make a nice little letter to Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Ok, so after I wrote that sentence, I decided to check out TiCS, and I did find one interesting little opinion letter (Kurthen M, Grunwald T, Elger CE. Will there be a neuroscientific theory of consciousness? (1998). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2(6), 229-234.) The authors basically argue that for a scientific approach to be valid, "consciousness" must be redefined. Here's the abstract:
"Neuroscientists and philosophers nowadays claim that the problem of phenomenal consciousness is a scientific problem. Increasing knowledge of the neural correlates of consciousness is expected to yield an explanation of consciousness in neuroscientific terms. On the other hand, it is sometimes argued that even complete knowledge of brain function will leave unanswered the question of why cerebral processes are accompanied by consciousness at all. Proponents of this view assume an unbridgeable ‘explanatory gap’ between the brain and the whole realm of phenomenal consciousness. Here, it is argued that this ‘explanatory gap’ problem can not adequately be met by current neuroscientific approaches to consciousness, while purely philosophical approaches remain controversial because they inevitably reach a level of contradictory intuitions that do not seem to be resolvable by further argument. However, the problem may be resolved once one accepts that the features of consciousness itself might change with our judgments and descriptions of consciousness inspired by neuroscience. Such a ‘change of consciousness’ becomes realistic when consciousness is construed as a description-dependent, ‘non-intrinsic’ property. Hence, it is argued that neuroscientists are right not to try to refute the explanatory gap argument, but that they should continue research on the neural correlates of consciousness, thus preparing new descriptions of phenomenal consciousness."
The authors go on to say that we will basically have to ignore the "seemingly impressive and enigmatic 'subjective character' of p-conscious states. (p.233)" Problem solved. Actually, they argue that p- (or, phenomenal) consciousness doesn't really exist, but is some sort of cultural construct. It reminds me of another TiCS article I once read that had something in the title like "Explaining it or explaining it away", if you get my drift.
Of course, any work out there that supports my claim is necessarily going to be an opinion paper, rather than basic research, so something like this might be the best I can do. This one probably has it's place in the article, but I suppose there are better one's out there that aren't written by wackjobs (I'll have to look elsewhere than TiCS for that, though!)
Anyway, someday I'll get my ducks in a row and put a little "skeptics" section in after the "cognitive neuroscience" section... it could make a nice project for a grad student. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.132.234 ( talk) 14:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Clearly, it does not follow from "the mere fact" that there are 23,000 hits in PubMed for "consciousness" that a lot of practicing cognitive neuroscientists disagree that this is a purely philosophical topic. Firstly, more than half of the articles are over 10-years old, but that is a minor point. More importantly, many of the articles come from such illustrious (note sarcasm) journals as Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine with titles such as "Apitherapy: Usage and Experience in German Beekeepers". Or how about "Alien abduction: a medical hypothesis." in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry. If anything, the pervasion of articles with the term "consciousness" is more supporting of the argument that the term is hopelessly ill-defined and whimsically bandied about by anybody that cares to do so. Actually, I'm being a little unfair: a lot of those PubMed articles are studies involving people's "health-consciousness".
Anyway, I followed your link to Dehaene's page, and looked over the references there. So, I pulled my copy of Gazzaniga off the shelf and reviewed Dehaene and Changeux's chapter there. Here is one notable quotation which nicely summarizes their general strategy:
"The context of consciousness is so broad and diverse and the issues are often so muddled (see Chalmers, this volume) that we deliberately limit ourselves here to only one aspect of consciousness, the notion of conscious access.... This discussion will aim at characterizing the crucial differences between those aspects of neural activity that can be reported by a subject and those that cannot. According to some philosophers, this constitutes an 'easy problem' and is irrelevant to the more central issues of phenomenality and self-awareness (e.g., Block, 1995). Our view, however, is that conscious access is one of the few empirically tractable problems presently accessible to an authentic scientific investigation..." (p. 1145 in Gazzaniga's The Cognitive Neurosciences III; I'm hoping they meant "currently" rather than "presently", which means that we don't even have that problem accessible to us yet!).
Compare that to the prior comment that a scientific study of consciousness is possible only if we ignore the "seemingly impressive and enigmatic 'subjective character' of p-conscious states." I would also argue to Dahaene that just because a person reports an experience doesn't mean that they actually "had" that experience. We only have data that they reported that experience, and we haven't gained any access to their "rich inner life". I agree that we can study behaviors such as attention and working memory, but the notion that any advances in those realms are going to render the hard problem solvable by scientific method is simply false. That is because the hard problem, by it's very definition, posits an "elan mental" that is not observable from the "outside". It pure and simply cannot possibly be approached by scientific means, by definition.
Yes, I concur with that. However, the extent of the philosophical part of my argument extends only as far as the philosophy of science, rather than any philosophical argument about the subject of this article, which is why I supposed it was better suited to the section of the article dealing with science (I can see both point's of view, however, and I will consider where it would be best suited). Also, it seems to me that this article is in fact covering two separate constructs: one construct that roughly corresponds to the "folk" notion of what is meant by "consciousness", and another construct that follows that same notion up to the point beyond which science cannot follow. However, this distinction is not made plain.
As an aside, while I can totally understand Dennett's line of reasoning (denying the hard problem), following that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion would essentially mean that "consciousness" doesn't exist and would hence preclude this article entirely (to which I'm not necessarily opposed). That is, what makes "consciousness" distinct from what I would term mere "cognition" is precisely the hard problem.
I made the (since reversed) addition in the "description and location" section that Descartes' noting the uniqueness of the pineal gland was in error. I understand my use of "studies" in the addition forced a need for a citation, and accept the reversal; but Descartes was in error, if only in the pineal gland's apparent singularity. I would still like this portion to be changed to reflect that fact, since "Descartes noted" seems to give some authority to the idea. Although the idea of the pineal gland as seat of consciousness is a concept long discarded in serious philosophy, I feel that allowing the text to stand as it is may mislead those who don't know the history of the search for a singular seat of consciousness or the particulars of the gland that are shown in its own Wikipedia article. Electric Sharpie ( talk) 16:18, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
This EL added on January 6 and immediately deleted is justified in that it complies with the guidelines for EL. Ergo: "What should be linked: 1. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons; 2. Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews.
QuantumOne ( talk) 05:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Listing of various approaches is useful, but some of these approaches are much better and well accepted than others. Canonizer.com is a wiki system with 'camps' and survey capabilities being designed to enable rigorous, dynamic, collaborative development and measurement of philosophic consensus as the field progresses.
An example philosophy of consciousness would be the consciousness is representational and real camp showing a significant early lead in the amount of consensus it has compared to all other theories so far. The members of that camp believe no other theory will be able to ever match their early lead, and that ultimately the demonstrable scientific proof will convert everyone else into this camp revealing it be THE ONE true theory. Of course until we have scientific proof one way or another, many will disagree. Canonizer.com seeks to rigorously measure this discovery process, for all theories, as the field progresses towards what some argue could be THE greatest scientific discovery of all time.
Proposed Miscellaneous sites Addition:
Brent_Allsop ( talk) 21:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
It seems like there is unanimous agreement that this addition is OK so I'm adding it. Brent_Allsop ( talk) 19:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
I've removed that link. I don't think that that sort of invitation to participate is at all appropriate to an encyclopedia. It would open for a rush of fora for discussing one thing and another, such as various diagnoses. Cheers, Hordaland ( talk) 16:30, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
I want to discuss some recent action in the Phenomenology and access consciousness section. An IP editor made a series of additions concerning Chalmers and the hard problem of consciousness. These were reverted by Spotfixer ( talk · contribs) with an edit summary stating "(WP:UNDUE weight; Chalmers is taken seriously by some, but not many.)" I had been tempted to revert the addition myself on the grounds of being poorly written, but I have to take issue with this edit summary. Many people disagree with Chalmers, but nearly everything I have read takes his arguments seriously. I believe it would be quite appropriate to have material on this topic in the section, but I wish it could be more clearly written than what the IP editor added. Looie496 ( talk) 17:46, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Hi -- I don't think it is useful to readers to link words like "philosopher", "scientist", and "universe". Also it's just plain wrong to link "nebulous" to fuzzy logic. I propose to undo these changes, but in the interest of not coming across as hostile, I thought it would be nice to get your reaction first. Regards, Looie496 ( talk) 17:21, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the above. Furthermore the two sentences referring to "some philosophers" and "some scientists" are not suitable for many reasons - vague, unreferenced, inappropriate style, and just untrue. Of course the way the article currently looks might make a scientist cringe, but I'd say the same for a philosopher. The article needs work to simplify and de-jargonize it. But to the extent that a Wikipedia editor feels that a word is silly, then I think they should keep away from the article about that word or else go out and learn about the subject, and publish something respectable about that we can reference to.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:26, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi
Looie496,
thanks for contacting me before undoing my revision!
You seem to be a very undooing revisionist according to your latest
english wikipedia contributions:
4 reverted edits on 7 in the last two days.
But please don't get me wrong!
I am a wikipedia administrator myself and I know there is loz of
vandalism "out there".
So I also appreciate that you started a discussion with me telling what were your thoughts about
my last three revisionson the
consciousness wikipedia article.
This even if they are all negative (if not plain negative!).
Thanks for proposing me to undo these changes:
you are the very FIRST polite editor that I have encountered on wikipedia in the last SIX years writing me so nicely about undoing my changes.
Please give me 24 hours for thinking about it.
Please also consider writing something more about yourself in the meantime!
Noone is biting you...
Thanks for reading me.
(Good night? Duh? I don't even know
time zone is!)
Maurice Carbonaro (
talk)
21:10, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
P.S.: I am posting these two messages on the
consciousness discussion page too in order to try involve other editors in the next 24 hours.
I think the opening has to start with what is simple and what is most definitive about consciousness. Here is what we have today...
Here is a draft for discussion...
Comments please.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
The main problem, as I see it, is that we are putting just about everything into consciousness. In dreams, for example, we can be conscious (aware) of the fact that we are dreaming. In vivid dreams we also perceive without a clear external source of stimuli. (Vivid dreams occur in REM phase, indicating contribution of our eyes to the vividness.)
In my opinion, we have to disambiguate sensations (phenomenal consciousness) from our interpretations (meaning) of them. The prior is hard to talk about, since talk, in itself, is interpretation (meaning). The later is much easier to talk about, since we already interpreted our sensations. (See percept.) This puts our interpretations into spotlight. And our interpretations are dictated by our culture, previous experiences and mood we are in.
We also have to keep in mind that we would be hard pressed to remember anything that was not, at least mildly, emotionally charged. And without memory, thought would be impossible. And without thought we would lose just about everything we, humans, pride ourselves about.
The interpreter of our sensations interprets the most of our sensations that are within interpreting powers of our culture, experiences and mood. The most of these interpretations are vague and never filter down into our consciousness, unless they pass emotional threshold. Specifics of a beautiful woman, we never met before, will be drawn to our eyes. Specifics of suddenly met friend will also be drawn to our eyes. In any case, the build up of specifics will take time; in average half a second or more (see Benjamin Libet’s work on timing of our consciousness). If specifics are not built our friend might tell us later how she tried and failed to attract our attention.
Basically, what we become conscious of is already heavily interpreted for half a second or more. And these interpretations do distort our sensations, sometimes heavily. (See Zen philosophy, for example, for methods and techniques to minimise these distortions.) The volume and timing of what we become conscious of is well measured and we would do well to stick to facts. I would also suggest that we would do well by presenting the history of thought on consciousness in the light of these facts.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 00:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Dear Andrew,
I think that we need to demystify consciousness and your opening does not help here. First of all consciousness rather evolves as we grow into our culture. We cannot speak about conscious foetus. We can only speak about identity in the foetal stage of development. Many aspects of consciousness, like planning, are absent in toddlers, for example: Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told. Social aspect of consciousness starts evolving at ages four or five. (Excessive “mine-mine” phase countered by adults' urges to share.) Well documented cases of feral children also indicate non-developed or underdeveloped consciousness in human sense. Furthermore, we can discern some aspects of consciousness in other species. (See Alex the Parrot.)
If we accept that our interpreter evolves as we grow up into our culture, many puzzling aspects of our consciousness will start to make sense. Blind sight, for example, might be explained as interpretations with visual component missing.
I’m not yet sure how to translate all this into opening, but together we could think of something.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 00:46, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I think the problem some people will have with your approach is that you are heading towards equating conscious ONLY with being awake and aware, like an animal. You might be surprised but some people would argue that a foetus does not have conscioussness in the full sense. I believe the word has a broad everyday meaning and a more strict philosophical and scientific meaning. The two meanings are not in conflict normally, but they can be sometimes and we need to be careful of that. Obviously Wikipedia needs to show both meanings.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Dear Andrew,
I urge you to read my words again. I do not equate consciousness with only being awake and aware, like an animal. I also argue that consciousness evolves as we grow up into our cultures. I’m also aware of ethical issues, but nurturing and protecting life does not need consciousness as an argument. This is rather an issue rooted in theological considerations; the same considerations that gave man right to use and abuse everything else in our environment.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 09:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure if I misread you to be honest. Note that I only said that your comments go in this direction. They go in this direction when I try to figure out how to make something that reflects your remarks in the opening text. (Easy for you to avoid this because you made no suggestion about what to change yet. :) ) Your new reply seems to indicate that you want to make some comment about the theological significance of consciousness? Tricky to do in a non-controversial way unless it is in a specialist section below? Or let me ask a question about this: is your point about the theological significance of consciousness not going to be strongly linked to (a) the theological significance of being human and (b) the link between what it is to be human and what it is to haev consciousness in the fullest sense of the word (or potentially)? If not then the fact that consciousness sensu strictu is human is in the opening as it now stands. All this may be irrelevant to what you really mean. I am struggling a bit to follow what your real point is, so have some sympathy for me on that!-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 16:11, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Dear Andrew,
I wrote: “First of all consciousness rather evolves as we grow into our culture. We cannot speak about conscious foetus.” And you replied: “You might be surprised but some people would argue that a foetus does not have conscioussness in the full sense.” As you can see, I cannot be surprised since I’m arguing the same. I’m also speaking about evolution of consciousness as we are growing up into our culture and that is definitely after our birth, although we may get some cultural hints during pregnancy. I'm also talking about culture (tought, language etc.) Does this mean animalism?
Reading what is written is much better than reading in. I’ll try to draft an opening in couple of days.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 04:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Dear all,
Here is my proposal for the opening well supported by scientific findings. Please note that I prefer non-consciousness (non-conscious) to unconsciousness (unconscious). Subconsciousness (subconscious) also seems inappropriate since it implies a hierarchy.
I also intend to add references once we agree on the content. Please, fell free to correct my grammar and other minor changes directly in the text. However, I would like substantive changes discussed separately.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 02:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Consciousness is the ultimate guide and mapmaker of our past and present interpretations of sensations. The most of sensations of our present are vaguely interpreted by our non-consciousness. In average, no more than seven, at the time, gain enough importance to be furnished with details during a noticeable delay; like when we unexpectedly meet a friend. (See Percept.) Consciousness also manages our intents, actions or inactions and vetoes unintended ones that would be socially unacceptable. As mapmaker, consciousness also interprets, at higher levels of abstractions, other interpretations. These, higher levels of abstraction, establish a coherent and easier to navigate whole enabling more reliable expectations and predictions for future moments of our lives.
Some of interpretations are inherited, while others have to be learned as we grow into our culture. Inherited interpretation, for example, is retina’s reaction to sensation of light. However, word “light” or that a shape is square has to be learned.
Contrary to some believes we are not fully conscious when we are born. Babies learn non-consciously and adults around a baby have to constantly repeat words and actions until first utterances are heard from the baby. Further down the timeline toddlers still lack planning dimension of our consciousness, while first signs of social dimension can be found between ages four and six. (See Child development.)
Fully evolved consciousness further enhances our learning capacity. This could be illustrated by learning a new dance. We see others dance and try to make the same moves, but they do not come out exactly as we would like them and we perform haltingly. This is the effect of veto power of our consciousness established by Doctor Benjamin Libet (“Mind Time”). Our consciousness observes our moves and when they do not match the intended, it halts actions initiated half a second earlier.
Various functions of consciousness are gradually diminished or entirely blocked as we fall a sleep. There are claims though that consciousness could be awakened enabling purposeful actions in dreams. (See Lucid dream.) Different functions of our consciousness could also be diminished or disabled by injuries in our brain.
Philosophers rightfully point at raw sensations as the only source for all of our interpretations - phenomenal consciousness. This, hard problem of consciousness, prompted some to declare that richness of sensations we experience is illusion. Others are willing to accept the richness of sensations as a fact that is impossible to discuss, for any discussion is inevitably - interpretation. fMRI scans, on the other hand, have shown that richness of sensations does not reach our brain. Imagined or actually seen images produce practically same brain activities. To scientifically prove or disprove richness of sensations we subjectively experience, we will have to look outside of our brains.
History
The concept of consciousness emerged as an important topic among philosophers in early nineteenth century. However, the only way consciousness could be researched then was introspective and results were not reliable. This prompted many psychologists to distance themselves with rigorous behaviourism.
The twentieth century, however, offered new methods to detect and measure some manifestations of our subjective experiences. This gave a new momentum to scientific research that maps these manifestations, mostly our brain activity, with our subjective experiences. The last sixty years of research provided a wealth of data on consciousness, on perception and on what it means to be human in general. Interestingly, the research provided some support to David Hume’s insights.
Tentative Notes
Guide and mapmaker: Inside a London cab-driver's brain. (Brief summary.) Also. Our language is also mostly organised along spatial and temporal dimensions. For this we do not have confirming brain scans, but we do have well developed theories in general linguistics, for example.
Absence of rich sensations in the brain: Seeing and imagining are the same to the brain.
Initial vagueness of interpretations in the brain: Right before Your Eyes: Visual Recognition Begins with Categorization.
Toddlers do not have planning capacity: Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told.
“To be aware of conscious datum is to be sure that it has passed.” E. G. Boring, “The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness” (New York: Dower, 1963, p.228)
G. A. Miller, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two”, Psychological Review 63 (1956, 81-87, p. 81.)
Dear all,
Please review my proposed intro and suggest changes. I especially invite Andrew to try to integrate his proposal. Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 00:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
(undent) Quite honestly, I find the whole proposed introduction to be a mess. It lacks the proper encyclopedic tone. It is altogether too "flowery" or "poetic" and lacks the precision that would be required for an encyclopedia. It also too long by far (see lead). Finally, there are numerous statements that are written as if they were facts, but there is no mention of who believes these positions, nor are there references to support the facts (for example "Contrary to some believes we are not fully conscious when we are born." Who believes that we are fully conscious when we are born? Who argues against this idea? What evidence supports this claim? Especially, what evidence makes it so certain that it should be taken as a simple statement of fact here? None of this is appropriately addressed in that sentence. See for example, verifiability, and sources). As it is currently written, this proposal reads as a statement of the authors' personal opinion, not a summary of what scientific and philosophical research on consciousness might tell us about whether, and to what degree, infants are conscious. To put it bluntly, this proposal reads like an essay not a summary of other people's thinking. I have picked out only one particularly egregious example, but the whole proposal suffers these problems. To make this proposed lead appropriate for the article would require massive revisions, to the point where it would be more effective to simply start fresh. Edhubbard ( talk) 19:52, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I think the proposal is very creative. But a Wikipedia article should not be original work. You say that you were trying to make this reflect scientific sources, but you don't cite them. You should try adding in those citations, but then I think the next problem that will follow is that you are synthesizing ideas you like, from sources you like, and emphasizing those. A Wikipedia article has to reflect the mainstream, and the opening even more so. An opening should also if possible make it easy for non specialized readers to understand as much as possible. I think you should aim to write an opening that reflects (a) what most people would agree with and (b) written in a way that no one is excluded from understanding it just because of esotericism.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 19:56, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Dear Looie496,
You are again attacking on technicalities, without offering anything constructive. If there is no agreement outside Wikipedia, there is no reason to reject an agreement within Wikipedia. I have offered a starting point for the intro; all other diverging views can be presented in the rest of the article. Try to be constructive, please.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 02:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Dear Andrew,
I’m not pushing my intro. I’m pushing for a better intro, whoever can propose one. I’m calling for constructive comments and alternative intros. What you and Looie496 are suggesting is rather lacking.
However, since others are silent, I’ll stop pushing for a better intro. I’ll only cite a rhetorical question from the latest issue of Seed magazine: “Does the radical egalitarianism of the wiki undermine traditional notions of scientific authority and consensus?” The article sheds an interesting light at our discussion.
Also. You and Looie496 convinced me that my proposed intro is original. It is therefore protected by copyright act. I intend to work a bit more on it for my next book.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 00:30, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I find these two bits contradictory:
Is sleep (or certain stages of it) lack of consciousness, or not? As strictly a lay-person, I feel that we are not conscious when we sleep - but I see that this is complicated! - Hordaland ( talk) 17:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the editors above that the new lead proposed by Damir Ibrisimovic fails to describe all the ways in which the term "consciousness" is used. This article must try to describe all of the most common uses of the term. This includes the "ordinary speech" definition (given in the current lead) and the most popular definitions used by philosophy or neuroscience (which are almost captured by the lead). I would like to point out that the term is also important to new age philosophy and eastern philosophy, as well as other theological sources. In the interest of WP:comprehensiveness, all of these uses should be described in this article and summarized in the lead. (See the article Sentience, which has the same problem and has made more of an effort to solve it directly.) ---- CharlesGillingham ( talk) 11:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I have added discussion of merkwelt at the end, a concept explained in that section. I have included the sources for it under the miscellaneous websites, but don't know how to reference in text. If someone could add some in-text references to it, that would be great. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danrules2 ( talk • contribs) 10:16, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Basically I would say that the current explorations of what the consciousness is have been to narrow minded. science seeks to explain it in terms of the third dimension, but one cannot possibly presume to understand the consciousness in terms of a simply complicated 3d structure, and there are also the one who realize this and go on to say that it exists within some spirit realm, which is equally absurd. In the same way that passage of time represents the fourth dimension, I believe that conscious phenomena represent some dimension higher than 4, one that thus far has not been visualized in any other form than in formulae on the sheets of paper of physicists. One might then go on to argue that, if that is the case, and all objects exist in all dimensions, why don't all objects have a consciousness. And to this I say that they do, only, not the same as us. You see, we in our brains have a vast, complicated, but ultimately structured, network of thought, memory, vision and all the senses that other objects simply do not. If you imagine the fifth dimension to be paparazzi and our chemically quantifiable sensations to be celebrities, you can begin to grasp what I mean. For example if a paparazzo was trying to report on a love triangle between celebrities, it would require for the celebrities to speak, a) a language it understands, and b)the same language as each other. In the brain/consciousness sense of this analogy this means that all of the brain signals must be mutually relevant, as they are, and that (at least for our experience of the consciousness)they must take the form that they take in our brain. So what I'm saying is that how we define consciousness, as a receptacle for every thought, feeling and sensation in the brain, does not apply to other objects, as they don't have any of those things for which to be received, nor do they have any nerves, they are merely bombarded with near infinite transitions of energy and matter states without any way of handling it. I also have a theory that the EM field surrounding the brain is the place where the consciousness occurs,(in whatever dimension)- this is because it fulfills the idea that for consistent and complex dimensional phenomena such as the consciousness to occur it requires both a single definable object and an the inherit complexity required by consciousness to be in that object, something which the brain itself doesn't fulfill. The reason for my statement that a single object is required is because I regard all conscious experience to be one event, and as you presumably know all events occur in a a different manner to different objects, therefore if the host of consciousness was not a single object it would not be coherent, and this is why, I think Artificial Intelligence, no matter how lifelike, will ever achieve even the consciousness of a spider (unless of course we go out of our way to have the calculations performed by AI equally reflected into an EM field).
I know this is only my theory, not significant when weighed against the heavyweights of the philosophy world, but I think it makes more sense than any alternative, and is just as worthy of a mention in the article as any other theory, despite its lack of following compared to them. People read encyclopedias to find out hard information, and if they can't get that, why put a filter on the speculative content in place in the article they are reading, because any one piece of speculation is just as likely to provide enlightenment as another, surely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Omg Pop ( talk • contribs) 16:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
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There's no such thing as a subjectively perceived "contentless" consciousness, nor is there such thing as a subjectively perceived unconsciousness (aside from a time-disconnect).
Thus, there's no such thing as a subjectively perceived consciousness, either. The concept is entirely imaginary or speculative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkl sem ( talk • contribs) 07:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
consciousness is subjectivity itself. it is the dreamer aware of his dream.
User:Jiohdi|Jiohdi]] (
talk)
22:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Although one of the books (with Libet as coauthor) is listed, the impact of his findings in nowhere to be seen. I also did not notice findings of other psychologists and neurologists reflected in the article. And the picture of consciousness psychologists and neurologists offer is completely different from that one philosophers offer.
I would say that both pictures need to be presented in any encyclopaedia entry. Maybe my website can help: Imagination is Greater than Knowledge.
Damir Ibrisimovic 14:28, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Dear all,
I see that there is not much progress made… Everything seems to be revolving around “hard problem”. Maybe simple opening and closing your eyes can do the trick?
As long we try to squeeze consciousness into our brain we will never be able to resolve this puzzle. Our brain is just an organ for higher processing. It does not contain richness of the world we experience with our eyes open:
Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 01:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Myscience, please explain why you don't think that the text I added contributes to the article. I think that there are at least some points there that would contribute, for example the view that the consciousness is currently asleep and fascinated, and that it can be awakened. I would be happy to revise the paragraph I added, and if you have any suggestions please state them. Anton H 14:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone feel this one deserves to be there:
Though this will certainly offend the person who added the link if they read this, it seems like pure crackpottery to me, and it's very brief. Since it seems to have been added only recently it probably hasn't been reviewed, though I doubt of all articles out there on the web this one would have a place if this were a featured article. I'll let the frequent editors of this article decide whether they want it there or not. Richard001 11:27, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
This consciousness page is quite neuro-scientific... I've moved the spiritual discussion to " Higher consciousness." I think this better serves those who are interested in both the science of consciousness and the spirituality of consciousness. I'm still hoping for replies about disambiguation of consciousness (see below). -- Dylanfly 20:09, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
In the book On Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins defines consciousness as "what it feels like to have a cortex". Could this be worked in to the article? Sancho 06:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
193.10.185.3 15:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the time has come to make this page dis-ambiguous. There is Consciousness, artificial consciousness, Political consciousness, Black Consciousness Movement, consciousness raising, and perhaps more. I'm concerned that this discussion of consciousness overwhelms the other common uses. -- Dylanfly 21:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Besides the question of disambiguation, the big question is what to rename this page on consciousness? Perhaps Human consciousness? Or Consciousness (of self)? Or.... ????? Please speak up, folks. I think there's a rather urgent need to disambiguate, and we'll need a collective effort here. :) -- Dylanfly 13:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I really need to hear from people... please. Consciousness is used so broadly on wikipedia and it makes for a horrible mess. About 100 religious/spiritual articles link here, for example, and most of them are really not related to what's being said here. So I'd like to go through a disambiguation. But what to call this page? Maybe self-conscious being ? Please chime in, friends. -- Dylanfly 18:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to add a video of panelists from the University of Southern California discussing the concept of human consciousness. The link is http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=3783&fID=345 (this does not automatically open the video). Please let me know what you think. ( ResearchChannel 19:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC))
In the interest of disambiguation, I think perhaps we should MERGE the Philosophy of Mind section with said article.
This page is best made into a more strictly neurological view of consciousness, and we could then disambiguate from spiritual consciousness, political consciousness, philosophical views of consciousness, and many, many more. I think that, as it stands, this is not the page that people are looking for when they link from, say, Hare krishna.
The only alternative, as I see it, is to merge religious and political views here, but that would make a very cluttered article. This neurological page is so good as is. Can I hear reactions about disambiguation of consciousness and the proposed removal of philosophical approaches? Cheers, -- Dylanfly 16:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I think the current page steers the sort of general course that is necessary with a subject that is as wide and potentially woolly as "consciousness". It gives people a sort of "taster" for the subject. The link to Philosophy of mind at the beginning of the philosophy section is good and similar links should head all of the sections. Incidently, the philosophy section of this article is pretty cool, using Block's diplomatic solution to defuse violent debate. So, I am in favour of leaving the the general structure of the article as it is. Incidently, although I am a great Iain Banks fan, it is not true that most neuroscientists adhere to Dennett's views, whatever gave Edhubbard that idea? I worked in the field for a while and believe that there were a wide range of ideas on consciousness amongst neuroscientists but most agreed with Crick that correlates of consciousness are an adequate basis for research. BTW, the philosophy of mind article is a good intro to the academic philosophy of this subject and might be ruined by a merger, people get hot under the collar about consciousness but are more laid back about academic philosophy of mind. Dypteran 14:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I just had a look at the talk page for philosophy of mind, it is a featured article. This reinforces my view given above: don't spoil a really good article by merging it with an article that is always going to cause contention!. The consciousness article is a good place to deal with passions and disambiguations, it can then link out to the calmer waters of other articles for full treatments of each aspect of the subject. Dypteran 11:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm a little surprised to see sapience in the first sentence as part of the definition of consciousness. It's probably a sufficient condition but it's hardly a necessary one, is it? I see it was added in April 2004 in this revision http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Consciousness&oldid=3273536 I'm tempted to remove it. Any comments on whether it should stay? Brian Fenton 19:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
There is no mention on this page of the views of eastern philosophies on consciousness (samkhya, yoga, vedanta which I am most familiar with, but maybe also buddhist, chinese, etc...). Maybe a paragraph or two should be added for that, especially since their view on consciousness is radically different from western. See my comment on Discussion page for mind. NikNovi 11:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
IMHO, the application to ethics section before the TOC is not relevant to consciousness in general and should be moved to a separate section of the article. Ostracon ( talk) 17:28, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to suggest the following changes:
Now among these figures, it is not those imprinted on the external sense organs, or on the internal surface of the brain, which should be taken to be ideas - but only those which are traced in the spirits on the surface of gland H (where the seat of the imagination and the 'common sense' is located). That is to say, it is only the latter figures which should be taken to be the forms or images which the rational soul united to this machine will consider directly when it imagines some object or perceives it by the senses.
Any thoughts or objections? I know citations are needed, but this is beyond me at the mo. Visual Error ( talk) 01:26, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
What is the word, if there is one (I suspect there isn't), for the ethical position that for an entity to be granted any ethical consideration, it must be conscious? For example, such a person would place no intrinsic value or non-conscious abstract entities like Gaia or biodiversity, or to non-conscious tangible things like rivers, trees and mountains (I suppose there are some who would believe some or even all of those things are conscious, however I can hardly take such views seriously), and dead people and animals (unless you believe in some sort of afterlife; note that future people, and animals for that matter, would most certainly be given consideration as they will exist at some point). Such people, like myself, could still hold a variety of views, from virtue ethics to consequentialism, but would be united by this common foundation (the main philosophy specifically inconsistent with this, or so it seems to me, is deep ecology). Is there any word for such a position, or does anyone know if it has even been discussed anywhere? (It should also be mentioned in the article, of course). On the other hand, if it hasn't I really think someone ought to do so... Richard001 ( talk) 11:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
The experiment has never been replicated independently. Only pigeons trained to pass the mirror test, are able to do so. There is a great youtube video on this, but here are three super credible references.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k728202u2g4517u2/ (your college has to subscribe to this or else you can't view) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T2J-3W3NFT8-7&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f699c7e49a2d90a12b61068234f7c6e3 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-pigeons/
I suggest taking the pigeons out of the consciousness article, as it only brings down the credibility of this article and wp. Also, probably the same pigeon loon has notoriously tried to place this "fact" into other non-related articles about psychology and neurobiology. I don't dare delete it because I dont want any retaliation, so if someone else is brave enough to remove the pigeon outta the list, be my guest. Sentriclecub ( talk) 11:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
The word “consciousness” obviously needs to be disambiguated. Phenomenal consciousness is sensations rich, while psychological or neurological consciousness is hardly so. This everybody can demonstrate to himself/herself by simple opening and closing his/hers eyes.
I would, therefore, suggest that this article makes this distinction and that our colleagues in psychology arena write about consciousness from their perspective. In psychology, this is well researched topic.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 03:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Consciousness is not a point of view
First paragraph, "Consciousness is a point of view"
This seems to stem from a confusion between the first-person perspective and subjectiveness. They are interrelated but not the same thing. I suggest removal of this description.
Confusing Introduction
I personally find Julian Jaynes evolutionary perspective on consciousness to be controversial. Might I suggest that the introduction would be fine without the 'inner space' commentary, which appears confusing to me in comparison to the views of Block and Nagel. However, that consciousness is not cognition is a good point and may be kept in the introduction.
The Role of the Neurosciences
Neuroscience is a broad area building upon several sub-disciplines. The united field of neuroscience was not established until 1971. Since neuroscience also regards aspects of the brain that do not involve mental processes the claim that consciousness is a subject in "neuroscience" is not entirely true. If we consider that:
1. Mental processes are biological features of the brain (Searle)
2. Consciousness involves mental processing (i.e. it probably has something with the brain to do)
3. The sub-discipline of neuroscience that studies mental processes--i.e. the biology of the mind (Gazzaniga)--is "cognitive neuroscience"
..."neuroscience" ought to be replaced with "cognitive neuroscience".
Neither behavioral nor basic neuroscience aims to understand consciousness.
Philosophical Stances on Consciousness
Are "personal identity" and "phenomenology" really stances on consciousness? Personal identity might depend on a concept of consciousness, but consciousness is not the central issue here - except on some views. Phenomenology (in the philosophical sense) refers to an approach to consciousness, however, does not necessarily presume a certain view of consciousness. It is more a method of inquiry than a philosophical stance. It certainly entails certain presuppositions, but it offers in itself no clear-cut answer to the ontological problems of consciousness, without first applying the phenomenological method. Moreover, a textbook would probably introduce dualism, monism, idealism and perhaps even pan-psychism for starters. These are ontological views, and the article may improve in clarity if they be separated from behaviorism, functionalism, identity theory (which has little to do with personal identity) and so on.
Ostracon ( talk) 20:06, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
I love the first line :P It's hard to explain it isn't it LuGiADude ( talk) 18:21, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
IMHO this is a poor way to begin an introduction. The word clearly has a meaning, so give a definition or definitions. Ben Finn ( talk) 17:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
It looks very unprofessional to begin the Lead that way. Of course, we can never attain clear definition of what consciousness is until we know a great deal more about it, but for now, we should stick with a working definition, not this mystical sounding jargon. Stampit ( talk) 15:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm a cognitive neuroscientist, and I would just like to point out that 'Consciousness' is a four-letter word in my research group. We tend to define "cognition" as physiological activity of the nervous system that does not directly effect a change in another organ system ('behavior you can't see', more or less), and we are perfectly able to go about our business without mentioning 'consciousness' or 'awareness' or anything of that sort... we leave those wishy-washy semantic arguments to the philosophers. As scientists, the only evidence we have of these pseudo-notions is from introspection and oral report... neither of which are reliable sources of information. My experience from attending conferences and such is that alot of cognitive neuroscientists share our point-of-view, and those that attempt to study 'consciousness' are definately in the minority and tend to be viewed with heavy skepticism by the field at large. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.132.48 ( talk) 16:12, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
My point is simply that most scientists would argue that 'consciousness' is a purely philosophical issue and science can't even approach it on basic theoretical grounds (at least not yet, given our current empirical abilities). Thus, it's really a matter of taste if you wish to say that split-brain research, mirror tests, blindsight, binocular rivalry, etc. are relevant to 'consciousness'. We simply don't know how these lines of research apply to consciousness, experiential qualia, "rich inner life", or whatever you want to call it. Of course, a few folks out there (i.e.: Koch, Pinker, Dennett, Chalmers) are going to latch on to science that seems to support their models and say that such science is 'the study of consciousness', but the scientists themselves (the good ones, anyway) would never make such an outlandish claim. As it is, the article seems to suggest that there is a real, valid scientific investigation into the 'hard problem of consciousness'... which I feel is misleading. I'm not saying that it doesn't belong in the article, but I'd like to see a caveat or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.132.234 ( talk) 14:58, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Wow, I wish I had time for that. Maybe after the SfN conference. Ironically, a quick search of "consciousness" on PubMed turns up over 23,000 results! Really, though, it's just a straightforward logical argument: by definition (i.e.: the meaning with respect to the general public), consciousness is a personal thing, a "rich inner life" that is not accessable to outside observation. Thus, since it is not observable, it is not studiable by empirical means. Simple as that. I'll track down a source that says the same one of these days... it could make a nice little letter to Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Ok, so after I wrote that sentence, I decided to check out TiCS, and I did find one interesting little opinion letter (Kurthen M, Grunwald T, Elger CE. Will there be a neuroscientific theory of consciousness? (1998). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2(6), 229-234.) The authors basically argue that for a scientific approach to be valid, "consciousness" must be redefined. Here's the abstract:
"Neuroscientists and philosophers nowadays claim that the problem of phenomenal consciousness is a scientific problem. Increasing knowledge of the neural correlates of consciousness is expected to yield an explanation of consciousness in neuroscientific terms. On the other hand, it is sometimes argued that even complete knowledge of brain function will leave unanswered the question of why cerebral processes are accompanied by consciousness at all. Proponents of this view assume an unbridgeable ‘explanatory gap’ between the brain and the whole realm of phenomenal consciousness. Here, it is argued that this ‘explanatory gap’ problem can not adequately be met by current neuroscientific approaches to consciousness, while purely philosophical approaches remain controversial because they inevitably reach a level of contradictory intuitions that do not seem to be resolvable by further argument. However, the problem may be resolved once one accepts that the features of consciousness itself might change with our judgments and descriptions of consciousness inspired by neuroscience. Such a ‘change of consciousness’ becomes realistic when consciousness is construed as a description-dependent, ‘non-intrinsic’ property. Hence, it is argued that neuroscientists are right not to try to refute the explanatory gap argument, but that they should continue research on the neural correlates of consciousness, thus preparing new descriptions of phenomenal consciousness."
The authors go on to say that we will basically have to ignore the "seemingly impressive and enigmatic 'subjective character' of p-conscious states. (p.233)" Problem solved. Actually, they argue that p- (or, phenomenal) consciousness doesn't really exist, but is some sort of cultural construct. It reminds me of another TiCS article I once read that had something in the title like "Explaining it or explaining it away", if you get my drift.
Of course, any work out there that supports my claim is necessarily going to be an opinion paper, rather than basic research, so something like this might be the best I can do. This one probably has it's place in the article, but I suppose there are better one's out there that aren't written by wackjobs (I'll have to look elsewhere than TiCS for that, though!)
Anyway, someday I'll get my ducks in a row and put a little "skeptics" section in after the "cognitive neuroscience" section... it could make a nice project for a grad student. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.132.234 ( talk) 14:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Clearly, it does not follow from "the mere fact" that there are 23,000 hits in PubMed for "consciousness" that a lot of practicing cognitive neuroscientists disagree that this is a purely philosophical topic. Firstly, more than half of the articles are over 10-years old, but that is a minor point. More importantly, many of the articles come from such illustrious (note sarcasm) journals as Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine with titles such as "Apitherapy: Usage and Experience in German Beekeepers". Or how about "Alien abduction: a medical hypothesis." in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry. If anything, the pervasion of articles with the term "consciousness" is more supporting of the argument that the term is hopelessly ill-defined and whimsically bandied about by anybody that cares to do so. Actually, I'm being a little unfair: a lot of those PubMed articles are studies involving people's "health-consciousness".
Anyway, I followed your link to Dehaene's page, and looked over the references there. So, I pulled my copy of Gazzaniga off the shelf and reviewed Dehaene and Changeux's chapter there. Here is one notable quotation which nicely summarizes their general strategy:
"The context of consciousness is so broad and diverse and the issues are often so muddled (see Chalmers, this volume) that we deliberately limit ourselves here to only one aspect of consciousness, the notion of conscious access.... This discussion will aim at characterizing the crucial differences between those aspects of neural activity that can be reported by a subject and those that cannot. According to some philosophers, this constitutes an 'easy problem' and is irrelevant to the more central issues of phenomenality and self-awareness (e.g., Block, 1995). Our view, however, is that conscious access is one of the few empirically tractable problems presently accessible to an authentic scientific investigation..." (p. 1145 in Gazzaniga's The Cognitive Neurosciences III; I'm hoping they meant "currently" rather than "presently", which means that we don't even have that problem accessible to us yet!).
Compare that to the prior comment that a scientific study of consciousness is possible only if we ignore the "seemingly impressive and enigmatic 'subjective character' of p-conscious states." I would also argue to Dahaene that just because a person reports an experience doesn't mean that they actually "had" that experience. We only have data that they reported that experience, and we haven't gained any access to their "rich inner life". I agree that we can study behaviors such as attention and working memory, but the notion that any advances in those realms are going to render the hard problem solvable by scientific method is simply false. That is because the hard problem, by it's very definition, posits an "elan mental" that is not observable from the "outside". It pure and simply cannot possibly be approached by scientific means, by definition.
Yes, I concur with that. However, the extent of the philosophical part of my argument extends only as far as the philosophy of science, rather than any philosophical argument about the subject of this article, which is why I supposed it was better suited to the section of the article dealing with science (I can see both point's of view, however, and I will consider where it would be best suited). Also, it seems to me that this article is in fact covering two separate constructs: one construct that roughly corresponds to the "folk" notion of what is meant by "consciousness", and another construct that follows that same notion up to the point beyond which science cannot follow. However, this distinction is not made plain.
As an aside, while I can totally understand Dennett's line of reasoning (denying the hard problem), following that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion would essentially mean that "consciousness" doesn't exist and would hence preclude this article entirely (to which I'm not necessarily opposed). That is, what makes "consciousness" distinct from what I would term mere "cognition" is precisely the hard problem.
I made the (since reversed) addition in the "description and location" section that Descartes' noting the uniqueness of the pineal gland was in error. I understand my use of "studies" in the addition forced a need for a citation, and accept the reversal; but Descartes was in error, if only in the pineal gland's apparent singularity. I would still like this portion to be changed to reflect that fact, since "Descartes noted" seems to give some authority to the idea. Although the idea of the pineal gland as seat of consciousness is a concept long discarded in serious philosophy, I feel that allowing the text to stand as it is may mislead those who don't know the history of the search for a singular seat of consciousness or the particulars of the gland that are shown in its own Wikipedia article. Electric Sharpie ( talk) 16:18, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
This EL added on January 6 and immediately deleted is justified in that it complies with the guidelines for EL. Ergo: "What should be linked: 1. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons; 2. Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews.
QuantumOne ( talk) 05:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Listing of various approaches is useful, but some of these approaches are much better and well accepted than others. Canonizer.com is a wiki system with 'camps' and survey capabilities being designed to enable rigorous, dynamic, collaborative development and measurement of philosophic consensus as the field progresses.
An example philosophy of consciousness would be the consciousness is representational and real camp showing a significant early lead in the amount of consensus it has compared to all other theories so far. The members of that camp believe no other theory will be able to ever match their early lead, and that ultimately the demonstrable scientific proof will convert everyone else into this camp revealing it be THE ONE true theory. Of course until we have scientific proof one way or another, many will disagree. Canonizer.com seeks to rigorously measure this discovery process, for all theories, as the field progresses towards what some argue could be THE greatest scientific discovery of all time.
Proposed Miscellaneous sites Addition:
Brent_Allsop ( talk) 21:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
It seems like there is unanimous agreement that this addition is OK so I'm adding it. Brent_Allsop ( talk) 19:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
I've removed that link. I don't think that that sort of invitation to participate is at all appropriate to an encyclopedia. It would open for a rush of fora for discussing one thing and another, such as various diagnoses. Cheers, Hordaland ( talk) 16:30, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
I want to discuss some recent action in the Phenomenology and access consciousness section. An IP editor made a series of additions concerning Chalmers and the hard problem of consciousness. These were reverted by Spotfixer ( talk · contribs) with an edit summary stating "(WP:UNDUE weight; Chalmers is taken seriously by some, but not many.)" I had been tempted to revert the addition myself on the grounds of being poorly written, but I have to take issue with this edit summary. Many people disagree with Chalmers, but nearly everything I have read takes his arguments seriously. I believe it would be quite appropriate to have material on this topic in the section, but I wish it could be more clearly written than what the IP editor added. Looie496 ( talk) 17:46, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Hi -- I don't think it is useful to readers to link words like "philosopher", "scientist", and "universe". Also it's just plain wrong to link "nebulous" to fuzzy logic. I propose to undo these changes, but in the interest of not coming across as hostile, I thought it would be nice to get your reaction first. Regards, Looie496 ( talk) 17:21, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the above. Furthermore the two sentences referring to "some philosophers" and "some scientists" are not suitable for many reasons - vague, unreferenced, inappropriate style, and just untrue. Of course the way the article currently looks might make a scientist cringe, but I'd say the same for a philosopher. The article needs work to simplify and de-jargonize it. But to the extent that a Wikipedia editor feels that a word is silly, then I think they should keep away from the article about that word or else go out and learn about the subject, and publish something respectable about that we can reference to.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:26, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi
Looie496,
thanks for contacting me before undoing my revision!
You seem to be a very undooing revisionist according to your latest
english wikipedia contributions:
4 reverted edits on 7 in the last two days.
But please don't get me wrong!
I am a wikipedia administrator myself and I know there is loz of
vandalism "out there".
So I also appreciate that you started a discussion with me telling what were your thoughts about
my last three revisionson the
consciousness wikipedia article.
This even if they are all negative (if not plain negative!).
Thanks for proposing me to undo these changes:
you are the very FIRST polite editor that I have encountered on wikipedia in the last SIX years writing me so nicely about undoing my changes.
Please give me 24 hours for thinking about it.
Please also consider writing something more about yourself in the meantime!
Noone is biting you...
Thanks for reading me.
(Good night? Duh? I don't even know
time zone is!)
Maurice Carbonaro (
talk)
21:10, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
P.S.: I am posting these two messages on the
consciousness discussion page too in order to try involve other editors in the next 24 hours.
I think the opening has to start with what is simple and what is most definitive about consciousness. Here is what we have today...
Here is a draft for discussion...
Comments please.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
The main problem, as I see it, is that we are putting just about everything into consciousness. In dreams, for example, we can be conscious (aware) of the fact that we are dreaming. In vivid dreams we also perceive without a clear external source of stimuli. (Vivid dreams occur in REM phase, indicating contribution of our eyes to the vividness.)
In my opinion, we have to disambiguate sensations (phenomenal consciousness) from our interpretations (meaning) of them. The prior is hard to talk about, since talk, in itself, is interpretation (meaning). The later is much easier to talk about, since we already interpreted our sensations. (See percept.) This puts our interpretations into spotlight. And our interpretations are dictated by our culture, previous experiences and mood we are in.
We also have to keep in mind that we would be hard pressed to remember anything that was not, at least mildly, emotionally charged. And without memory, thought would be impossible. And without thought we would lose just about everything we, humans, pride ourselves about.
The interpreter of our sensations interprets the most of our sensations that are within interpreting powers of our culture, experiences and mood. The most of these interpretations are vague and never filter down into our consciousness, unless they pass emotional threshold. Specifics of a beautiful woman, we never met before, will be drawn to our eyes. Specifics of suddenly met friend will also be drawn to our eyes. In any case, the build up of specifics will take time; in average half a second or more (see Benjamin Libet’s work on timing of our consciousness). If specifics are not built our friend might tell us later how she tried and failed to attract our attention.
Basically, what we become conscious of is already heavily interpreted for half a second or more. And these interpretations do distort our sensations, sometimes heavily. (See Zen philosophy, for example, for methods and techniques to minimise these distortions.) The volume and timing of what we become conscious of is well measured and we would do well to stick to facts. I would also suggest that we would do well by presenting the history of thought on consciousness in the light of these facts.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 00:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Dear Andrew,
I think that we need to demystify consciousness and your opening does not help here. First of all consciousness rather evolves as we grow into our culture. We cannot speak about conscious foetus. We can only speak about identity in the foetal stage of development. Many aspects of consciousness, like planning, are absent in toddlers, for example: Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told. Social aspect of consciousness starts evolving at ages four or five. (Excessive “mine-mine” phase countered by adults' urges to share.) Well documented cases of feral children also indicate non-developed or underdeveloped consciousness in human sense. Furthermore, we can discern some aspects of consciousness in other species. (See Alex the Parrot.)
If we accept that our interpreter evolves as we grow up into our culture, many puzzling aspects of our consciousness will start to make sense. Blind sight, for example, might be explained as interpretations with visual component missing.
I’m not yet sure how to translate all this into opening, but together we could think of something.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 00:46, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I think the problem some people will have with your approach is that you are heading towards equating conscious ONLY with being awake and aware, like an animal. You might be surprised but some people would argue that a foetus does not have conscioussness in the full sense. I believe the word has a broad everyday meaning and a more strict philosophical and scientific meaning. The two meanings are not in conflict normally, but they can be sometimes and we need to be careful of that. Obviously Wikipedia needs to show both meanings.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Dear Andrew,
I urge you to read my words again. I do not equate consciousness with only being awake and aware, like an animal. I also argue that consciousness evolves as we grow up into our cultures. I’m also aware of ethical issues, but nurturing and protecting life does not need consciousness as an argument. This is rather an issue rooted in theological considerations; the same considerations that gave man right to use and abuse everything else in our environment.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 09:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure if I misread you to be honest. Note that I only said that your comments go in this direction. They go in this direction when I try to figure out how to make something that reflects your remarks in the opening text. (Easy for you to avoid this because you made no suggestion about what to change yet. :) ) Your new reply seems to indicate that you want to make some comment about the theological significance of consciousness? Tricky to do in a non-controversial way unless it is in a specialist section below? Or let me ask a question about this: is your point about the theological significance of consciousness not going to be strongly linked to (a) the theological significance of being human and (b) the link between what it is to be human and what it is to haev consciousness in the fullest sense of the word (or potentially)? If not then the fact that consciousness sensu strictu is human is in the opening as it now stands. All this may be irrelevant to what you really mean. I am struggling a bit to follow what your real point is, so have some sympathy for me on that!-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 16:11, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Dear Andrew,
I wrote: “First of all consciousness rather evolves as we grow into our culture. We cannot speak about conscious foetus.” And you replied: “You might be surprised but some people would argue that a foetus does not have conscioussness in the full sense.” As you can see, I cannot be surprised since I’m arguing the same. I’m also speaking about evolution of consciousness as we are growing up into our culture and that is definitely after our birth, although we may get some cultural hints during pregnancy. I'm also talking about culture (tought, language etc.) Does this mean animalism?
Reading what is written is much better than reading in. I’ll try to draft an opening in couple of days.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 04:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Dear all,
Here is my proposal for the opening well supported by scientific findings. Please note that I prefer non-consciousness (non-conscious) to unconsciousness (unconscious). Subconsciousness (subconscious) also seems inappropriate since it implies a hierarchy.
I also intend to add references once we agree on the content. Please, fell free to correct my grammar and other minor changes directly in the text. However, I would like substantive changes discussed separately.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 02:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Consciousness is the ultimate guide and mapmaker of our past and present interpretations of sensations. The most of sensations of our present are vaguely interpreted by our non-consciousness. In average, no more than seven, at the time, gain enough importance to be furnished with details during a noticeable delay; like when we unexpectedly meet a friend. (See Percept.) Consciousness also manages our intents, actions or inactions and vetoes unintended ones that would be socially unacceptable. As mapmaker, consciousness also interprets, at higher levels of abstractions, other interpretations. These, higher levels of abstraction, establish a coherent and easier to navigate whole enabling more reliable expectations and predictions for future moments of our lives.
Some of interpretations are inherited, while others have to be learned as we grow into our culture. Inherited interpretation, for example, is retina’s reaction to sensation of light. However, word “light” or that a shape is square has to be learned.
Contrary to some believes we are not fully conscious when we are born. Babies learn non-consciously and adults around a baby have to constantly repeat words and actions until first utterances are heard from the baby. Further down the timeline toddlers still lack planning dimension of our consciousness, while first signs of social dimension can be found between ages four and six. (See Child development.)
Fully evolved consciousness further enhances our learning capacity. This could be illustrated by learning a new dance. We see others dance and try to make the same moves, but they do not come out exactly as we would like them and we perform haltingly. This is the effect of veto power of our consciousness established by Doctor Benjamin Libet (“Mind Time”). Our consciousness observes our moves and when they do not match the intended, it halts actions initiated half a second earlier.
Various functions of consciousness are gradually diminished or entirely blocked as we fall a sleep. There are claims though that consciousness could be awakened enabling purposeful actions in dreams. (See Lucid dream.) Different functions of our consciousness could also be diminished or disabled by injuries in our brain.
Philosophers rightfully point at raw sensations as the only source for all of our interpretations - phenomenal consciousness. This, hard problem of consciousness, prompted some to declare that richness of sensations we experience is illusion. Others are willing to accept the richness of sensations as a fact that is impossible to discuss, for any discussion is inevitably - interpretation. fMRI scans, on the other hand, have shown that richness of sensations does not reach our brain. Imagined or actually seen images produce practically same brain activities. To scientifically prove or disprove richness of sensations we subjectively experience, we will have to look outside of our brains.
History
The concept of consciousness emerged as an important topic among philosophers in early nineteenth century. However, the only way consciousness could be researched then was introspective and results were not reliable. This prompted many psychologists to distance themselves with rigorous behaviourism.
The twentieth century, however, offered new methods to detect and measure some manifestations of our subjective experiences. This gave a new momentum to scientific research that maps these manifestations, mostly our brain activity, with our subjective experiences. The last sixty years of research provided a wealth of data on consciousness, on perception and on what it means to be human in general. Interestingly, the research provided some support to David Hume’s insights.
Tentative Notes
Guide and mapmaker: Inside a London cab-driver's brain. (Brief summary.) Also. Our language is also mostly organised along spatial and temporal dimensions. For this we do not have confirming brain scans, but we do have well developed theories in general linguistics, for example.
Absence of rich sensations in the brain: Seeing and imagining are the same to the brain.
Initial vagueness of interpretations in the brain: Right before Your Eyes: Visual Recognition Begins with Categorization.
Toddlers do not have planning capacity: Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told.
“To be aware of conscious datum is to be sure that it has passed.” E. G. Boring, “The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness” (New York: Dower, 1963, p.228)
G. A. Miller, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two”, Psychological Review 63 (1956, 81-87, p. 81.)
Dear all,
Please review my proposed intro and suggest changes. I especially invite Andrew to try to integrate his proposal. Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 00:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
(undent) Quite honestly, I find the whole proposed introduction to be a mess. It lacks the proper encyclopedic tone. It is altogether too "flowery" or "poetic" and lacks the precision that would be required for an encyclopedia. It also too long by far (see lead). Finally, there are numerous statements that are written as if they were facts, but there is no mention of who believes these positions, nor are there references to support the facts (for example "Contrary to some believes we are not fully conscious when we are born." Who believes that we are fully conscious when we are born? Who argues against this idea? What evidence supports this claim? Especially, what evidence makes it so certain that it should be taken as a simple statement of fact here? None of this is appropriately addressed in that sentence. See for example, verifiability, and sources). As it is currently written, this proposal reads as a statement of the authors' personal opinion, not a summary of what scientific and philosophical research on consciousness might tell us about whether, and to what degree, infants are conscious. To put it bluntly, this proposal reads like an essay not a summary of other people's thinking. I have picked out only one particularly egregious example, but the whole proposal suffers these problems. To make this proposed lead appropriate for the article would require massive revisions, to the point where it would be more effective to simply start fresh. Edhubbard ( talk) 19:52, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I think the proposal is very creative. But a Wikipedia article should not be original work. You say that you were trying to make this reflect scientific sources, but you don't cite them. You should try adding in those citations, but then I think the next problem that will follow is that you are synthesizing ideas you like, from sources you like, and emphasizing those. A Wikipedia article has to reflect the mainstream, and the opening even more so. An opening should also if possible make it easy for non specialized readers to understand as much as possible. I think you should aim to write an opening that reflects (a) what most people would agree with and (b) written in a way that no one is excluded from understanding it just because of esotericism.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 19:56, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Dear Looie496,
You are again attacking on technicalities, without offering anything constructive. If there is no agreement outside Wikipedia, there is no reason to reject an agreement within Wikipedia. I have offered a starting point for the intro; all other diverging views can be presented in the rest of the article. Try to be constructive, please.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 02:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Dear Andrew,
I’m not pushing my intro. I’m pushing for a better intro, whoever can propose one. I’m calling for constructive comments and alternative intros. What you and Looie496 are suggesting is rather lacking.
However, since others are silent, I’ll stop pushing for a better intro. I’ll only cite a rhetorical question from the latest issue of Seed magazine: “Does the radical egalitarianism of the wiki undermine traditional notions of scientific authority and consensus?” The article sheds an interesting light at our discussion.
Also. You and Looie496 convinced me that my proposed intro is original. It is therefore protected by copyright act. I intend to work a bit more on it for my next book.
Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic ( talk) 00:30, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I find these two bits contradictory:
Is sleep (or certain stages of it) lack of consciousness, or not? As strictly a lay-person, I feel that we are not conscious when we sleep - but I see that this is complicated! - Hordaland ( talk) 17:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the editors above that the new lead proposed by Damir Ibrisimovic fails to describe all the ways in which the term "consciousness" is used. This article must try to describe all of the most common uses of the term. This includes the "ordinary speech" definition (given in the current lead) and the most popular definitions used by philosophy or neuroscience (which are almost captured by the lead). I would like to point out that the term is also important to new age philosophy and eastern philosophy, as well as other theological sources. In the interest of WP:comprehensiveness, all of these uses should be described in this article and summarized in the lead. (See the article Sentience, which has the same problem and has made more of an effort to solve it directly.) ---- CharlesGillingham ( talk) 11:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I have added discussion of merkwelt at the end, a concept explained in that section. I have included the sources for it under the miscellaneous websites, but don't know how to reference in text. If someone could add some in-text references to it, that would be great. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danrules2 ( talk • contribs) 10:16, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Basically I would say that the current explorations of what the consciousness is have been to narrow minded. science seeks to explain it in terms of the third dimension, but one cannot possibly presume to understand the consciousness in terms of a simply complicated 3d structure, and there are also the one who realize this and go on to say that it exists within some spirit realm, which is equally absurd. In the same way that passage of time represents the fourth dimension, I believe that conscious phenomena represent some dimension higher than 4, one that thus far has not been visualized in any other form than in formulae on the sheets of paper of physicists. One might then go on to argue that, if that is the case, and all objects exist in all dimensions, why don't all objects have a consciousness. And to this I say that they do, only, not the same as us. You see, we in our brains have a vast, complicated, but ultimately structured, network of thought, memory, vision and all the senses that other objects simply do not. If you imagine the fifth dimension to be paparazzi and our chemically quantifiable sensations to be celebrities, you can begin to grasp what I mean. For example if a paparazzo was trying to report on a love triangle between celebrities, it would require for the celebrities to speak, a) a language it understands, and b)the same language as each other. In the brain/consciousness sense of this analogy this means that all of the brain signals must be mutually relevant, as they are, and that (at least for our experience of the consciousness)they must take the form that they take in our brain. So what I'm saying is that how we define consciousness, as a receptacle for every thought, feeling and sensation in the brain, does not apply to other objects, as they don't have any of those things for which to be received, nor do they have any nerves, they are merely bombarded with near infinite transitions of energy and matter states without any way of handling it. I also have a theory that the EM field surrounding the brain is the place where the consciousness occurs,(in whatever dimension)- this is because it fulfills the idea that for consistent and complex dimensional phenomena such as the consciousness to occur it requires both a single definable object and an the inherit complexity required by consciousness to be in that object, something which the brain itself doesn't fulfill. The reason for my statement that a single object is required is because I regard all conscious experience to be one event, and as you presumably know all events occur in a a different manner to different objects, therefore if the host of consciousness was not a single object it would not be coherent, and this is why, I think Artificial Intelligence, no matter how lifelike, will ever achieve even the consciousness of a spider (unless of course we go out of our way to have the calculations performed by AI equally reflected into an EM field).
I know this is only my theory, not significant when weighed against the heavyweights of the philosophy world, but I think it makes more sense than any alternative, and is just as worthy of a mention in the article as any other theory, despite its lack of following compared to them. People read encyclopedias to find out hard information, and if they can't get that, why put a filter on the speculative content in place in the article they are reading, because any one piece of speculation is just as likely to provide enlightenment as another, surely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Omg Pop ( talk • contribs) 16:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)