Consciousness

I visualize a mind as being a pool of active structures that are continually reacting with each other. 

For example, when you look at a face, your eyes pour a stream of tiny active structures that represent the smallest details of the visual scene into your mind. These structures partake in reactions that gradually clump various features together into higher and higher forms of structure, remaining active all the time. As parts of the face are recognized, the structure grows and includes portions that represent the mouth, the eyes, and nose, and so on. Finally, additional layers of structure that denote a face become involved in the 'reaction', which in turn start to react with structures related to the person whose face it is.

I visualize this process as if there was originally thousands of tiny distinct dots in a pool that gradually start to snap together and form a little pattern, which then combine with other little patterns to form an increasingly  complex structure floating in the pool. It's like watching a jigsaw puzzle assemble itself!

Which brings me to the notion of consciousness. 

The most common definition of consciousness is related to awareness. People will tend to say that they're conscious of something when they're aware of it. This can be applied to perception, such as simply viewing a beautiful sunset, or a higher-level thought such as "that was a great movie". Philosophers sometimes refer to these two categories of consciousness as "Phenomenal consciousness" and "Access consciousness", respectively.

My own understanding of consciousness is influenced by how I visualize the lowest-level workings of a mind. Specifically, I think that a mind's consciousness of something is proportionate to the richness of the active structures that are currently assembled for that thing.

For example, consider the example I gave related to seeing a face. When the input is first received, there are thousands of tiny active structures that are floating separately. Then after a short while, they start to clump together into larger structures which in turn form larger clumps. As the structure grows, we become more conscious of what it represents. 

There's a threshold at which a structure becomes large enough that it is translated into other forms for communication purposes (I discussed this in my last few posts). So the structure that represents an attractive face might be translated into the English sentence "that's a beautiful face" that we would then hear in our head. Note however that hearing the thought is a consequence of us being conscious of the face, not the cause.

The translated form feeds back into our sensory input machinery which in turn can cause additional growth in the original structure. In other words, generating translated forms of a structure can create a positive feedback loop that cause more of a mind's resources to be associated with the structure that triggered the translated form in the first place.

When we communicate a translated form of a structure to the outside world by, say, speaking about it, those around us might then start thinking about the same thing and a similar structure starts to form in their own minds. They in turn can speak the results of their thinking which can feed back into our own mind. Communication of translated thoughts to the outside world can therefore have the effect of bringing ever-expanding numbers of minds to bear upon a particular concept.

To summarize: I think that our consciousness of a particular thing is proportionate to the size and complexity of the active structure(s) that currently represent it. Consciousness is thus a sliding scale. Structures can grow and shrink in milliseconds, so what we are conscious of can change very quickly. The things we are most conscious of are often translated into phrases that we hear in our heads, but I want to emphasize again that we hear the thoughts because we have become conscious of them, not the other way around.

Coming up next: emotions.

Comments

[Fantasy Writer Guy]

Intriguing concepts! As a poet, and a very sincere one, who has fought a long internal battle and suffered much horror in the process and achieved much joy, I use the words consciousness and subconsciousness as labels for these two sides of me that seem to be locked in an eternal cold-war.

They are the brain I know and the devilish one that lurks above; The one that drafts excuses for the decisions I only appear to make and the one that has already made those decisions without my informed consent.

They are David and Goliath. They are the witness and the controller; the stow-away and the real captain of this ship that is me; the puppet and the master.

They are the keeper of joy and wonder and pity versus that beastly force that knows only instinct, domination, the deadly sins and the great power of duplicity.

My reality would seem too horrifying for most people to dare contemplate in its fullness but to do so seems to me the hallmark of the greatest frontier in evolution.

I wish I was a scientist or a better poet or one with the knack for bringing people together. I fear that the union of scientists and poets is the only hope in realizing this grand evolution of consciousness defeating instinct. However small such hope is, there is nothing else, by my accounting, worthy of being called a purpose in life.

[Graham Glass]

Thanks FWG, that was a great post! It's inspired me to plan a follow-up post on the subconsciousness; it will be interesting to hear what you think about that one as well!

Best regards,
Graham