[From Richard Thurman (960423.0950)]
Bill Powers (960422.1130 MDT)
I'm still puzzled about the relationship between consciousness and
control. Amid all the control processes that must be going on all the
time, at all the levels, I experience a sort of central control process.
This is the main thing I am doing at the time. Right now, I'm typing
this post, with some sort of vague idea in mind that I'm exploring at
the same time that I'm writing about it. This is the main thing I'm
doing right at this moment, as far as conscious activities are
concerned.
My experience of this is that my consciousness is driving this activity
-- if I turned my attention to doing something else, what I am doing now
would stop happening and some other Main Thing would start happening
instead. If my attention turns toward something else, the present
activity won't keep going all by itself. A lot of things will keep going
-- I won't fall out of the chair, for example, or forget to breathe, or
forget that I'm trying to communciate something. But if my attention
turns toward trying to grasp the picture of me consciously writing this,
the typing pauses and when I have more to write, I find that my hands
are off the keys and I have to put them back (and put down my cigarette,
too, probably).
.
.
.
If someone is looking for an idea for an interesting research project, I
think this would be a good one. Figuring out reliable ways to divert
attention from an ongoing control task should be fun. And since the
object would be to learn something about the relationship of control to
attention, no _a priori_ position has to be taken; you just do the
experiment and see what happens. You don't have to say you're looking at
Zen ideas, or operant conditioning, or levels, or self-concepts, or any
of that conjectural stuff. You just do the experiment and pay attention
to what happens. Then you will know more about this subject than anybody
else knows now.
I am wondering about the difference between consciousness and awareness.
At first you (Bill) were writing about consciousness but at the end
switched to doing experiments on diverting attention. It seems to me that
these are two separate phenomena. (No, three -- consciousness, awareness,
and attention.)
It seems possible to describe all three 'things' as separate, yet
interacting, phenomena.
William James referred to consciousness as "the faint echo left behind by
the disappearing soul." I don't know what that means but it sounds
profound.
Dostoyevsky wrote, "I am firmly convinced that a great deal of
consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease.... To
be too conscious is an illness -- a real thoroughgoing illness." That
sounds less profound, but I think I understand what he means here.
Notwithstanding all the "consiousness-expanding" books and groups,
consciousness (and in particular an unbalanced 'self-consciousness) can be
a like an illness. I get visions of Woody Allen doing one of his self
introspection bits.
Bruce Gregory (960423.1615 EDT)
Do
we really have any evidence to support the notion that it is possible
for a system to operate consciously _or_ automatically, without
consciousness? When I am unconscious, my wife has no difficulty
discerning this fact. If a system is complex enough to pass the
Turing test, might it not perforce _be_ conscious?
Wittgenstein, in his 'Philosophical Investigations' wrote that
consciousness is like "a beetle in a box. "No one can look into anyone
else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is by looking at
_his_ beetle.... Everyone might have something different in his box...."
I think it is important to define what consciousness is. Its being used
in several different ways on CSG. For example, it already seems like the
words consciousness, attention, and awareness are being used
interchangeably.
It seems to me that people can be quite conscious of what they are doing
without being able to articulate their awareness. Take for example those
split brain (post-commissurotomy) studies by Sperry a couple of decades
ago. (Commissurotomy has to be one of the ultimate disturbances for
testing controlled variables.) Those studies showed that the verbal
explanations (self talk) were accomplished by the left side of the brain.
The right side does not experience the kind of inward directed awareness
that we think of as consciousness, yet the right side can still accomplish
all sorts of acts without being able to explain what its doing or that it
is aware of doing it. At one point Sperry wrote "After watching
repeatedly the superior performance of the right hemisphere in tests of
design one finds it most difficult to think of this half of the brain as
being only an automaton lacking in conscious awareness. It is especially
hard to deny consciousness to the right hemisphere where it has been shown
to be superior in novel tasks that involve logical reasoning and also when
it generates typical facial expressions of satisfaction at tasks well done
or annoyance at its own errors." His research showed that the right
hemisphere (despite its underdeveloped language capacities) has a fully
developed, seemingly normal consciousness, a basic personality, and social
self-awareness.
The left hemisphere can verbalize its awareness, and that is what we
experience when we look inwardly. The right hemisphere does not seem to
be able to articulate its awareness, but seems to be conscious,
nonetheless.
Rich
···
--------------------------------------------------
Richard Thurman
Armstrong Lab
Mesa AZ.
(602) 988-6561
Thurman@hrlban1.aircrew.asu.edu
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