This is my explanation of consciousness, which was spurred by Sam Harris's blogs on the mystery of consciousness (Part 1, Part 2).
I will begin with my definition of consciousness. Consciousness is the ability to "say no" to a stimulus. Another way to say it would be the ability to recognize patterns (i.e. learn). Everything below will be my attempt to explain how I came up with this definition.
First, one has to acknowledge the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Energy will ALWAYS go from areas of high concentration to areas of low. This fact is required in order to clearly distinguish between consciousness and unconsciousness. We have evolved in order to limit the amount of work needed. For example, opposable thumbs greatly reduces the amount of work required to move an object, thus lowering the amount of energy required to move that object. Being able to recognize patterns and say no to a stimulus would do the same thing, for the "thing" is not wasting energy; it recognizes that pattern as an overall wasteful experience in terms of energy and chooses to not respond to the stimulus in order to not do wasteful work.
Let's look at a clear example of something that would be considered unconscious: a car. If a car was conscious, it would be able to choose to shut itself off if it was sitting idly for an extended amount of time to return to the lowest energy state. Now you might argue that we can program cars to do that, which is true, but that is responding to a stimulus, not recognizing a pattern and then responding to it. So I would also argue plants are not conscious; plants can move, but only if a stimulus (e.g. light) is present to respond to.
There are many examples of conscious organisms that clearly recognize and react to patterns: humans, cats, dogs, mice, birds, etc. However, I would also consider the computer named Watson to be conscious. It is capable of recognizing patterns not pre-programmed. This is quite remarkable, for we have a working model of consciousness!
The big question now is where did this evolved ability of consciousness come about? I will guide you to my prior blog post as to where I think we should begin looking.
I think that another important part of consciousness is the word "I." In my mind, one of the most important consiousnesses is self-consciousness, and without this, I personally don't believe consciousness exists.
ReplyDeleteInteresting how you pluralize consciousness. I do not know if I would say there is more than one. I would agree that the level of complexity would differ, but find it difficult to say there are clearly different types of consciousness. I would be interested in learning more on what you mean by "cousciousnesses".
ReplyDeleteI would also argue that for anything to make a choice, it has to be aware of itself in some sense. The thought "this choice is better" ends with an understood "for me" at the end.
You do make me question the idea of Watson being conscious, because does it actually KNOW of its existence. If unplugged, does the memory wipe out completely? However, does a simple creature capable of learning KNOW of its existence...?
If you are curious about my thoughts, I urge you to come talk to me after school at some time about this.
Ok, so I did some research, and I'm starting to agree more and more with you about consciousness being the denial of a reaction to a stimulus. The basest of impulses is the desire to live, and I found some evidence for animal suicide, pointing toward a different idea. But most of these animal suicides have some sort of positive effect, such as a pea aphid exploding to scatter it's brethren and possibly kill an invading ladybug. Yet, I still think that the idea of "I" as a requirement for consciousness, because I definitely don't think an aphid has the same level of consciousness that we have. Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteI would need to do some research myself. I would be cautious calling those suicides by insects. I would not be surprised if it is similar to miscarriages found in animals, human or otherwise. Miscarriages are caused, not a choice; chemicals out of balance give a warning sign and automatically abort fetuses for the safety of the mother. I would not be surprised if something of the reversal of roles happens to the pea aphid, where the adult dies for the offspring. This would be caused by detecting hormones/chemicals from the ladybug. So this may be an unconscious phenomenon, for the pea aphid might not be "choosing" this behavior. To an observer, this would look like a suicide; suicide bombers are well known in our culture, so labeling it elsewhere would not be a stretch.
ReplyDeleteThe aphid may only be responding to stimuli, thus not being conscious is the point I tried to make there.
Also, this reminds me of the problems with language, for we do not have words to accurately describe everything. For all I know, the pea aphid might more accurately be self-sacrificing, not suiciding. However, that still invokes the idea that a choice was made. Still a problem with language. Maybe unknowingly self-sacrifice...
Hmmmm....glad we don't have that in real life....unwilling sacrifice. But the idea does present itself. Perhaps the sacrifice is by choice, but the aphid's consiousness forces it to place the value of it's brothers above itself. That just raises more questions about what consiousness actually is. More and more questions...
ReplyDelete