[From Bill Powers (2000.01.30.0630 MST)]
Erling Jorgensen (2000.01.29.2000 CST)--
To put it simplistically, how are inputs and outputs moving
along a hierarchical PCT diagram when someone, quote, goes
up a level? I find that very pertinent and appropriate
as it pertains to PCT. In my role as counselor, I try to
understand it in a clinical sense. But the scientist in me
also wants to know what is going on in a technical sense.
My view of going up a level is that it's a phenomenon of awareness. We can
experience the phenomenon and see strong evidence that it happens in others
as well as ourselves, but we have no mechanistic model of it yet. I suspect
that before we can produce a mechanistic model of awareness, we will have
to expand considerably our notion of what "mechanistic" means. For now, all
we can do is make some guesses.
Let me lay out my mental model of this phenomenon, as far as I have gone
with it. None of this is Gospel, of course: it's a (rather complex) opinion
to be taken under consideration.
I. Think of the hierarchy as a complex neural device. As a neural device,
it works according to whatever laws of signal propagation and synaptic
transmission may be in operation. We can reproduce as computer models some
of its functions at the lower levels of organization, and speculate about
how they might work at higher levels. When a model of a neural control
system is running in a computer, the model does not take on any special
properties we might call awareness or consciousness. If we added another
layer of computation, that would not add awareness or consciousness,
either, and so adding _any number_ of layers of computation and signal
processing would not add awareness or consciousness. We would just have
more and more signals that are functions of other signals. To add the
missing quality to the model, we would have to add something more than
neural computations and signals. I don't know what it is we would have to
add, but whatever it is, I don't know how to program or build it, either.
II: Awareness seems to _receive information_ from the hierarchy, and this
information is almost exclusively perceptual. That is, if we have any
awareness of other (non-perceptual) signals in the hierarchy, it is nowhere
near as detailed as the perceptual information. I do not consciously
experience, for instance, any signals that go from my brain into my spinal
cord, or from my spinal cord into my muscles. I may experience their
effects, but I don't experience the signals. Awareness, therefore,
_observes_ rather than _acts_, and what it observes are primarly perceptual
signals in the hierarchy.
Consciousness, or at least one meaning of consciousness that seems
consistent with this mental model, refers to both the aware observer and
that which is being observed. That which is being observed consists
primarily of a set of perceptual signals existing at one level or more in
the hierarchy, but existence of the signals does not by itself imply
conscious awareness. Neither does the existence of the aware observer imply
any particular signals being observed, or any at all. Anaesthesia can
remove the signals without removing the awareness. Consciousness requires
both the aware observer and a set of perceptual signals that is the object
of observation.
The neural hierarchy can work, at all levels, without being observed by
awareness. Thus, at least given the experimental methods and data we have
to date, it would seem very difficult for an external observer to tell
whether a given control process is being carried out consciously or
unconsciously. This is particularly hard at the higher levels, where the
processes are complex, symbolic, and abstract, and always give the
impression of conscious execution. Yet it is quite possible, in fact
common, for higher processes to operate without consciousness, like a
computer running in an empty room.
III: The character of the world of which we are aware depends on the level
in the hierarchy and the particular systems from which signals are being
received by awareness. If the signals come exclusively from the
relationship-perceiving level, the world will be experienced consciously as
consisting entirely of relationships. If the signals also come from the
configuration level, the world will consist of objects in relationship to
each other. If some signals come from the logic level, the world of
relationships among objects will appear to have logical properties and
implications.
The particular characteristics of the conscious world are determined by the
perceptual functions of the systems from which the signals are being
observed. Awareness itself is no different when experiencing a gouty toe
from what it is when experiencing the proof of a theorem. It simply
observes. The difference is entirely a matter of the perceptual input
functions involved -- where they get their input signals, and what
operations they perform on them. And those functions are a matter of neural
systems receiving signals, operating on them, and producing new signals
that are some function of the input signals. Once the hierarchy has become
organized in a particular way, the production of perceptual signals and
control of them are independent of awareness.
Evidently, the level or levels from which perceptual signals are being
received by awareness can change. If you drop a book on your toe while
you're in the middle of consciously trying to prove a theorem, you (as the
aware observer) will quite likely cease receiving signals from the
theorem-proving circuits and begin receiving them from your poor toe and
all the other systems that have been alarmed by the pain. You might even
take your poor toe to a doctor for X-rays and tender care, focusing on it
to the exclusion of all else until you're sure it's not broken and is going
to be OK (and all those other thoughts that having an injured toe awakens
in the hierarchy).
When you finally get back to trying consciously to prove the theorem, you
may well find that it has been proven. The theorem-proving circuits went
right on working on the problem in the absence of the observer, and the
results are ready when anyone is ready to observe them.
IV: At any given moment, there is, I believe, some particular level or mix
of levels from which a given person's awareness habitually receives
signals. There are control systems in operation outside this range of
awareness, at the same level, lower levels, and higher levels. The higher
levels operating without awareness supply the reference signals that
determine what the levels in awareness are trying to accomplish by their
actions -- what perceptions they are trying to keep in what states. The
lower levels operating without awareness are the means of control being
used by the awared systems. There is normally a limit to our awareness of
both _how_ we are controlling our awared experiences, and _why_ we are
controlling them as we are. And of course we are unaware of all processes
at the same level that are going on outside the range of awareness.
However, it is possible to change the content of awareness -- to receive
perceptual information from systems outside the normal range, as happens
when you drop a book on your toe. Dropping a book on your toe appears to
replace high-level connections to awareness with low-level connections: you
go down a level (or lots of levels). That means simply that awareness
switches from receiving _these_ signals to receiving _those_ signals. It
doesn't really (in my mental model) move, but awareness is now associated
with a different set of perceptual signals and their control systems, so
the _content of consciousness_ has changed to a lower level.
V. Any unusual or markedly disturbing event -- one that calls for some
unusual readjustment of a control process -- appears to call for awareness
to focus on it, at least momentarily. For example, if I ask you right now
if your right ear is itching, that will interrupt the flow of what we're
doing here, and you'll probably have to "look" and see if your ear is
itching in order to answer me, and it will take some time for all the
activities in extraneous systems to die down so you can get back on the
main track. Another person can evidently create quite a disturbance just by
asking the right question, and one result of this disturbance is that the
connections between your hierarchical perceptions and your awareness may
change for a while. If the question concerns a system that is not currently
in awareness, your awareness may momentarily switch so it's receiving
perceptual information from that system. Your consciousness may change so
that now it contains, as an object of awareness, the perceptions which that
system has been controlling (and goes on controlling).
One of the things that apparently happens when awareness is receiving
information from particular control systems is that reorganization of those
systems is enabled. I don't think that awareness _causes_ reorganization,
but if anything is going on that calls for reorganization to start,
awareness provides a focus for it, directs it to particular subsystems.
Some "Maxwell's demon" like this is clearly needed if reorganization of the
complex systems in the brain is not to be more disruptive than helpful.
So it follows that an external participant can, by providing disturbances
of systems outside awareness, both call attention to them and help direct
reorganization to them if there is some reason for reorganization to be
happening.
And clearly, when there is conflict the most useful place for attention to
be directed and for reorganization to take place is not at the level where
the conflict is expressed and felt, but at a higher level that is in a
position to change the reference signals that are the efficient cause of
the conflict (since that level set those reference signals in the first
place). So it's probably useful for awareness to move its connections up a
level, occasionally or even permanently.
VI: Remarks. I'm sure there are quite a few wrong statements in the above
exposition. If I knew which ones they were, I would change them, but I
don't. Further investigation, no doubt, will lead to the corrections that
are needed. For me, this mental model has enough form and substance to be a
useful guide to action -- in particular, to help apply the Method of Levels
to oneself and others -- whether it is "true" or not.
Of course there is a lot left out. Like most omissions, they will not
become evident until there is a need for the omitted concepts and our
groping encounters only the empty air.
Best,
Bill P.