Consciousness - Search for a definition

CONSCIOUSNESS - Search for a Definition

Russell E. Vance, III, PhD.

I do think that I put the proverbial cart before the proverbial horse when I wrote about whether consciousness creates reality. As I became more serious about my investigation I realized that such a question is several steps advanced of those questions which have yet to be answered. One such question is 'what is consciousness?' Here I am not talking about a simple definition of a word which we casually apply to being aware of oneself and the phenomena around us. I am talking about the definition of a process or a condition. You see, I'm already in trouble. Perhaps I should state the question "what is consciousness? ... really!"

Facing this question I have, at this writing, identified seven (7) assumptions, six (6) questions, and concluded that none of it can be tested because the tested and the testor would be the same. Further there is no physical and objective way to test anything because whatever we "observe" is a matter of how our brain interprets the sensory input. We don't really see, hear, feel, taste or smell. Our brain interprets electro-chemical signals. The label or definition which we apply to whatever we think we see, hear, feel, taste or smell is something we have learned from some source. Well, you see the problem. I won't belabor this problem further, at least at this point.

After reviewing a number of different definitions of consciousness I realized that I didn't like any of them. They are all based upon an assumption(s) which I do not believe can be made. Since this paper is merely a preliminary report of progress, which is actually being written more for myself than for a reader, I'm not going to take the extensive amount of time required for a review of literature. Since I'm not writing for a faculty committee, you, my willing reader, must be my committee and judge whether skipping the review of literature at this point is acceptable.

I must share my list of assumptions to date.

Firstly, only a living organism can be conscious. Based upon current definitions of consciousness, which I have already confessed I do not like, only a living organism can be aware of itself and/or its surroundings. This obviously requires a lot more investigation. This can never be more than assumption because there is no way to test or prove that only a living organism can be conscious. In fact, I can only assume that you are alive and/or conscious because you tell me which is dependent upon my brain's interpretation of sensory input. There is no objective test because there is no test that is not dependent upon this interpretation.

Second assumption - consciousness is real. This is a true, unsubstantiated assumption. What I am calling the "matrix theory" would challenge this assumption. Laugh if you like, but the "matrix theory" is based upon the movie "The Matrix" where people only thought they were conscious. Please forgive me if I don't take the time, at this point, to explain further. I will clarify this soon. I think you get the basic idea and the basic challenge to our assumptions about consciousness. It seems obvious that I am thinking but how do I know that I am actually conscious? But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The third assumption is that if only a living organism can be conscious and an inanimate or dead organism can not be conscious, then consciousness must be related to being alive. If consciousness has anything to do with awareness, a rock, for example, has very little change of being conscious. While most have little objection to this assumption, there are those who believe that objects such as rocks have, for the lack of a better term, metaphysical or magical properties which could imply or require consciousness.

My fourth assumption is that the only evidence we have that we are alive is that we think. You will quickly learn that I don't think anyone has improved upon Descarte's "cogito ergo sum". By the end of this monogram I will find my way back to Descarte. I will end up agreeing that because I think therefore I am, but what am I? But again I don't want to get ahead of myself.

Fifth. Something somewhere must be real otherwise there would be no foundation for my thinking. Whether there is universal consciousness or, as humans currently believe, we are individually conscious, I can not help but feel that there is something real behind it.

Assumption six might appear a bit self-centered but because you are merely the interpretation of my brain as a result of a variety of stimuli, I can only consider whether I am real and/or conscious. I can not speak for you. While I do believe in the interdependence of all things in the universe and the basic oneness of all things, which is a totally other discussion, I can not deny that my only evidence of your existence is the electro-chemical stimuli which my brain must interpret. This is, of course, assuming that my brain is physically real. If I can come to some concrete conclusion about my own reality and consciousness, then I can apply that to you, if you want.

You are going to laugh at assumption seven. It comes from the movie Star Trek IV. Spock is being tested by a computer that asked for Kiri-Kin-Tha's first law of metaphysics. The answer was "nothing unreal exists." This is my seventh assumption - nothing unreal exists. If nothing unreal exists, then all things real can, do or did exist. If we are real then we exist. As silly as this may seem, and whether or not Leonard Nimoy who wrote Star Trek IV, meant to be truly philosophical I believe that this could be an important premise.

This brings us to six questions : (1) how do we know that what we think, experience, etc., is real? (2) Am I conscious or do I just think I'm conscious? (3) Which came first consciousness or awareness? (4) How do I know that I'm aware? (5) Are sentient beings the only ones who can be conscious? (6) can any of this be tested?

I have no delusions of this being the final list of questions, but it is where I am beginning.

The first question goes back to the Matrix Theory. How do we know that what we think, experience, etc., is real? Reality is in my mind. Some people believe that gods and devils are real. It is in their minds. There is absolutely no way they can prove their reality and there is absolutely no way I can disprove it. They can say "but look at this miracle" or "so-and-so saw him", but that is still all in their minds, the result of electro-chemical stimuli interpreted by their brain. I can say "there is no physical or scientific evidence for a god or demons" but the same limitations apply to me. Bottom line . . . this is all a mind game. Sorry! Someone can say "but I saw ..." to which I must gently and as diplomatically as possible respond "your brain interpreted the electro-chemical stimuli as ..."

This, of course, leads us to the second question . . . am I conscious or do I just think I'm conscious? This seems like an absurd question if you are unwilling to consider the matrix theory. Again we must realize that everything is in the mind. What we see, hear, etc., is totally dependent upon sensory stimulation. What about what we call a dream? The dream is the mind at work. How do we test the difference between a dream and what we call reality? There is no test because it's all in the mind. I dare say that every person who reads this has, at some point in their life, dreamed that they were awake and it seemed real enough to believe while their bodies lay blissfully asleep.

I'm not going to spend any time here on the third question of which came first consciousness or awareness since this question is directly related to one of the definitions of consciousness. Since I haven't been able to define consciousness it is impossible to determine whether something I can't define came before awareness. Likewise I'm going to skip question four - how do I know that I'm aware? - because I haven't had time to consider the definition of awareness and my knee jerk reaction is that this can't be tested.

Question five - are sentient beings the only ones who can be conscious? This question led me into an area which I have at times considered but didn't expect to arise here. The basic accepted definition of sentient is "able to perceive or feel things". Okay, let's push this. Plants perceive their surroundings and changes in their environment as evidenced by adjustments they make. Plants can be said to feel as evidenced by their reaction to various stimuli. Therefore plants, it could be argued, are sentient. Are they therefore conscious? With the little argument I've provided it is hard to say they are not sentient. Botanist can make a convincing argument. I would love to follow this train of thought further but there isn't time here and I haven't had the opportunity to investigate. You can bet that I will.

The last question is the most important . . . can any of this be tested? Try as I might I must admit that the answer is "no". To test requires that we be both testor and the subject. It is totally dependent upon our own interpretation of the electro-chemical signals which constitute the answers. That's unacceptable. I can't test my own consciousness for this reason. If my brain's interpretation of electro-chemical stimuli is all that convinces me of your existence, how can I adequately test your consciousness?

This leaves me in a very bad position. Here I am searching for an explanation of the process of consciousness and I can't come up with an hypothesis that suits me. And even if I could come up with an hypothesis, I've concluded that there is no way to test said hypothesis. Time to call in the big guns. The Nobel Laureate in physics, Richard Feynman, said of scientific enquiry "First you guess. Don't laugh, this is the most important step."

I'm sure that Dr. Feynman is much more qualified to guess than am I, but people have been guessing about gods and all sorts of things since the beginning of recorded time and then selling it as 'truth', so I figure that if I'm honest about guessing, it's at least a start.

As I stated earlier I would find my way back to Decartes and here we are. "I think therefore I am", to which I added 'but what am I?' Whether individual or part of a universal consciousness. Whether independent, according to traditional physics and Abrahemic religions, or interdependent and impermanent as per quantum physics and Buddhist philosophy, Descartes' premise holds its own which is more than I can say for other hypotheses and definitions of consciousness.

I don't actually view Descartes' premise as a definition of consciousness but as a foundation or starting point for a definition. The other modern definitions all talk about awareness of self. There are a plethora of objections to and problems with this. The greatest stumbling block is that any definition of awareness must address or include consciousness. If you read these definitions you soon realize that to be aware you must be conscious, therefore how can you argue that to be conscious you must be aware? You have a circular argument. Then they add awareness of external phenomena. That runs head first into the problem of human sense and dependence upon the interpretation of electro-chemical stimuli by our brains. We could make the argument that whether or not the interpretation is accurate or verifiable it does indicate awareness which, in turn, indicates consciousness. However, it does not account for dreams and what psychology calls hallucinations. In medical school I was taught that the reason for an hallucination is a chemical breech across a hypothetical barrier between two portions of the brain. We still have no idea why that chemical imbalance causes one to see, hear, feel, taste and smell things which the external sensory organs of an observer do not see, hear, feel, taste or smell. In short, one can only assume the presence of external objects based upon the belief that our brain's interpretation of the electro-chemical stimuli is accurate. Although we do not really understand the process of a dream or hallucination we do have evidence that they exist which challenges all of our assumptions and raises the question of reality.

While I do believe that consciousness is a process unique to living organisms I do not believe that we can have a definition of consciousness that is dependent upon self-awareness. As I have briefly demonstrated, awareness is fraught with problems and I maintain that we have no viable definition for "self". The only reason that I believe that other homo sapiens have a sense of self is because my audio sensory receptors have sent electro-chemical stimuli to my brain which I have interpreted as telling me this. Since my belief that all homo sapiens have an awareness of self is an assumption which is not testable one can see how impossible it is to speak of the self-awareness of other animal species who do not send signals that are collected by my auditory sensory organ and interpreted as telling me yea or nay.

Even though I do believe that other species of animals do have self-awareness I believe that I would be wise to not have self-awareness as a requirement for consciousness. Apart from all the problems already indicated I believe that, to arrive at a general definition of consciousness, we must consider plant consciousness. Even though the process must obviously be quite different I do not see how I can consider one without the other. At some later point it would be appropriate to differentiate between animal and plant consciousness.

Many, if not most or all, scientist, philosophers, psychologists, researchers, et al., would contend that one is unconscious during sleep. They would also likely talk about the person who is rendered unconscious from a blow to the head. The state which they are calling unconsciousness is similar to sleep in that the unconscious individual does not interact with the world around them in a manner expected which is commonly called "conscious" or "awake". In this way common English vernacular uses 'conscious' and 'awake' interchangeably. Since we can not differentiate the process of thinking between when one is "awake/conscious" and "asleep/unconscious" I feel that I must assume that the process of thinking is the process of thinking whether awake or asleep.

We know that people dream and that dreaming appears to be some sort of thought process that can challenge our traditional definitions of consciousness and reality. Likewise I have known multiple patients who have been "rendered unconscious" yet report dreams and thought. Some have actually reported listening to the conversation of those who thought them unable to hear because of being "unconscious." For several decades first responders have been taught not to talk in front of an "unconscious" victim because they are known to hear and remember.

I had a situation many years ago where a patient appeared to be at death's door. They were not "conscious" and the family was called. The family sat at the death bed for an entire day. Obviously they talked about the dying person. Fortunately everything they had to say was loving and complimentary because the person did not die. When they "regained consciousness" they were able to give a running account of everything that had been said about them.

Unless we can identify different types of thinking - e.g. a difference between conscious-thought and unconscious-thought - we are confronted with a significant challenge to the very idea of unconsciousness while one is alive. Since we have no real idea of the actual physiological process of thinking we have no way to make such a differentiation, which would mean that we would be wise to discontinue the use of "unconscious". Further, from what we know about the brain as an organ, it will continue its transfer of electro-chemical signals, chemical exchange between cell transmitors and receptors, interpretation of signals, etc., until death. In short, death is the only point at which the thought process ceases.

As far as consciousness is concerned, it seems that we are forced to admit that we are only unconscious when we are dead. Otherwise we might be in an interactive state, a dream state, or a neutral state. The interactive state is that state where we are interacting with external phenomena and stimuli . . . kissing your lover, eating ice cream, looking at a beautiful landscape, listening to birds as you smell the freshness after a rain. I picked the word "neutral" to identify that state in which our brains are neither interacting with the external world nor actively dreaming. This is the state during which the brain is actively monitoring the various signals coming from sensors and organs and making decisions about how the body is to react to changes. For example, the brain might sense a drop in temperature and cause your body to curl up to conserve heat. It might sense a drop in oxygen level and cause you to take deep breaths. It might sense danger and cause you to awaken and taken protective action.

The dream state is that state in which the mind deals with internal constructs which we generally hold to be unreal. This forces me to spend at least a few moments considering reality. Even the famous philosopher, Martin Heidegger, in his equally famous work Being and Time, had to face the relationship between reality and consciousness. "In so far as Reality has the character of something independent and 'in itself', the question of the meaning of 'Reality' becomes linked with that of whether the Real can be independent 'of consciousness' or whether there can be a transcendence of consciousness into the 'sphere' of the Real." (1) Of course Heidegger was working at a disadvantage because he was still trying to make an ontological argument. Reality and consciousness, among many things, defy ontological definition or argument.

In their book Quantum and the Lotus, co-author Trinh Xuan Thuan noted the ancient Buddhist notion that "'reality' is never totally distinct from consciousness." (2) His co-author, Matthieu Ricard quoted renowned physicist, David Bohm, who concluded

Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends on what we think. What we think depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality. (3)

Ricard concludes that "no matter how complex our instruments may be, no matter how sophisticated and subtle our theories and calculations, it's still our consciousness that finally interprets our observations." (4) That does sound a lot like what I've been saying.

All of this leads to my definition of consciousness.

animal consciousness =df the brain function/activity that (i) interprets and reacts to electro-chemical stimuli from sensory organs, initiates response to that stimuli, (ii) initiates and manages the thought process whether in interactive or dream state, (iii) ultimately determines what, for the individual, is real; and (iv) exists, functions or is active until the animal dies.

The next step is to subject this to extreme scrutiny to see if it can pass muster.

FOOT NOTES:

(1) Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. (An electronic edition without eISBN number. Location only - 6795)

(2) Ricard, Matthieu and Trinh Xuan Thuan (2001).Quantum and the Lotus. Three Rivers Press, NYC. p. 119 eISBN: 978-0-307-56612-6 (Originally published in French as L'Infini dans la Paume de la Main)

(3) David Bohn, lecture given at UC Berkeley in 1977.

(4) Quantum and the Lotus, p. 120