Hi, Tim –
BP: Yes, it is fun, and your questioning helps me think about it more
productively. It’s too easy to run around in circles when you just think
these things without sharing them with anyone.
TC: I’m not sure I understand
this question. How is a perception existing and a perception being
experienced different? Are you getting at the idea that our whole network
of control systems is always ‘on’ so they all must have perceptions that
exist at any particular moment but we only ever experience a small
fraction of these perceptions at that particular moment?
BP: I define a perception as the presence of neural signals in an
afferent pathway. That’s a bit confusing because most people mean
conscious perception when they say perception, and I don’t blame
them. I really should say “perceptual signals,” shouldn’t
I?
According to my understanding of how living control systems work, every
neuromotor control system that’s in operation contains a perceptual
signal which is really what is being controlled. But we are aware of only
a few of these control systems and their perceptions at a time, which is
to say that only some of them are consciously perceived. This is
my basis for distinguishing between perception (perceptual signals) and
awareness, and for defining consciousness, or conscious experience, as
the combination of perceptual signals and awareness. Perceptual signals
can easily exist without awareness; controlling unconsciously, as in your
example of not remembering how you drove to some destination, is common.
But you know the perceptual signals must have been there because that’s
how control works.
It’s also possible to have awareness without perceptual signals. It’s
like waiting in the dark to see or hear something. You’re receptive, you
feel aware, but there’s nothing to receive.
BP:I’m trying to approach this
from the purely experiential viewpoint.
Logic may say that awareness is not “fundamentally” different
from
perception, but when you say that, aren’t you saying that it’s
experientially different?
TC: Hmmm.I’m not sure what a ‘purely’ experiential viewpoint would be.
Isn’t logic an experience too? Yes, I am saying that the sense of being
aware is experientially different from other perceptions … in the same
way that the sense of ‘honest’ is different from the sense of ‘put the
milk in after the tea’.
BP: Yes, logic is a perception, too. But you can either identify yourself
with the logical system, or distance yourself from it and observe it in
action as a phenomenon, rather than just believing whatever it comes up
with. When you identify with a hierarchical system, it’s as if you become
that system; its perceptions are your perceptions, its thoughts are your
thoughts, its world is your world. When you back away from that system,
you’re still aware of the perceptions but they’re no longer yours in the
same way. Instead of perceiving a world that is somehow just
there, you’re aware of perceiving, as well as being aware of
what you’re perceiving.
BP: Possible, or it’s also
possible that this is what makes all
living systems alike. How you reason about it depends on what your
premises are. How you experience it, once you can distinguish
thought
from awareness of thought, doesn’t depend on premises or logic.
TC: Doesn’t distinguishing thought from awareness of thought rely on some
premises too? Why is ‘awareness of thought’ not just another thought?
Doesn’t that depend on the way we define ‘thought’? Is an image a
thought, or a sense that someone is sneaking up behind
you?
BP: There’s a point during explorations of this kind where you start
thinking “What I just thought is a thought I was aware of. And so is
this thought, and this one about that one, and so on…” It looks
like an endless cycle. But eventually the light dawns – “I’m just
thinking one thought after another about other thoughts, and that whole
business, however many times I repeat the cycle, is just the same process
of thinking. and that’s a thought, too, but so what?” You perceive
the cycle, and from then on you’re outside it looking at it from a stable
place instead of going around and around. Then you are aware of the
thinking as something different from you the observer. The observer
doesn’t think. I recall your saying something very similar to this a
while ago.
TC: Yep, me too. The sense of
observing something, however, is one experience of awareness as I
experience it. I’ve had the experience of driving from A to B with my
mind being somewhere else entirely. It’s only when I arrive at B that I
become aware again of my immediate surroundings and I assume I didn’t
drive through any red lights or knock anyone down on the trip. Clearly
there must have been some awareness going on to enable me to drive from A
to B (even though ‘I’ wasn’t aware of it).
BP: Not awareness going on: perception. The perceptual signals were being
controlled, but you weren’t aware of them. You were being aware of other
perceptual signals instead, perhaps imagined ones.
I think there are probably measurable differences between controlling
with conscious involvement and doing it unconsciously or automatically.
This is something that needs experimental investigation. There may be
relevant studies in the literature on attention.
TC: Ah, I think I’ve just
realised what might be happening in our discussion. If I had my copy of
B:CP here with me I’d check the glossary because I have a vague memory
that you define ‘consciousness’ and ‘awareness’ differently. I’ll check
that when I get to work but that might explain the difference - you’re
using the term ‘awareness’ to mean the sense of being aware and I’m using
the term to mean both ‘being conscious’ and ‘being aware’. If that’s
right, that’s just illuminated for me where the apparent divergence
between us has been.
BP: Yes, I think that’s it. The thing is, control systems don’t seem to
need awareness in them to control perfectly well. I never put awareness
into any of the physical control systems I designed and built, and they
worked anyway. This immediately tells me that perceptual signals, which
all control systems must have, are not the same as awareness. Awareness
and perceptual signals are two different things; each can exist without
the other. Put them together and you have conscious perception.
Best,
Bill