Talk:Consciousness/Archive 3

Subjective consciousness is nonexistent

There's no such thing as a subjectively perceived "contentless" consciousness, nor is there such thing as a subjectively perceived unconsciousness (aside from a time-disconnect).

Thus, there's no such thing as a subjectively perceived consciousness, either. The concept is entirely imaginary or speculative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkl sem (talk • contribs) 07:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

consciousness is subjectivity itself. it is the dreamer aware of his dream.

User:Jiohdi|Jiohdi]] (talk) 22:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

This comment explains nothing but merely makes a statement.

What I believe is that conciousness is simply an entity's awareness of its environment(physical, social, emotional, etc).

I find that a very common mistake is the confusion of consciousness with self-consciousness, through this non-separation it makes the two separate ideas impossible to distinguish and get separate definitions for.

I have a definition for consciousness;

Consciousness is an entity's subjective experience. The process that is essential for consciousness is the integration and organisation of information collected from multiple sensory inputs, by a central processing system (brain). A distinction must be made between the processing of information by the central processing system, and the processing of nutrients by the body. The processing of nutrients is essential for giving and sustaining an entities life but does not denote consciousness.

With this definition it is easy to see that each conscious entity has a subjective experience of its environment. This also negates the idea that consciousness could be an objective phenomenon.

Self-consciousness is the recognition of experience as subjective. For example; an ant may not realise that another ant is experiencing, as it is. If this is the case then the ant would hold no self-consciousness. However the ant is still aware of its surroundings, able to navigate from the nest, find food and return. So the ant is conscious, of this there is no doubt.

M. Francois & R. Herz-Edigner.

(Preceding unsigned comment written by 121.72.225.149 (talk · contribs) and reformatted by Looie496 (talk) 00:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC))

Libet's Findings & Consciousness

Although one of the books (with Libet as coauthor) is listed, the impact of his findings in nowhere to be seen. I also did not notice findings of other psychologists and neurologists reflected in the article. And the picture of consciousness psychologists and neurologists offer is completely different from that one philosophers offer.

I would say that both pictures need to be presented in any encyclopaedia entry. Maybe my website can help: Imagination is Greater than Knowledge.

Damir Ibrisimovic 14:28, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear all,

I see that there is not much progress made… Everything seems to be revolving around “hard problem”. Maybe simple opening and closing your eyes can do the trick?

As long we try to squeeze consciousness into our brain we will never be able to resolve this puzzle. Our brain is just an organ for higher processing. It does not contain richness of the world we experience with our eyes open:

Mystery.

Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 01:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Deletion by Myscience

Myscience, please explain why you don't think that the text I added contributes to the article. I think that there are at least some points there that would contribute, for example the view that the consciousness is currently asleep and fascinated, and that it can be awakened. I would be happy to revise the paragraph I added, and if you have any suggestions please state them. Anton H 14:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, since I have received no answer I added a revised paragraph from the viewpoint of Samael Aun Weor. If you don't like it for some reason then please discuss that here instead of just deleting it. Thanks. Anton H 07:22, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Aun Weor does not have the stature for an independent mention in this summary article which is largely about movements and broad ideas. Geometer 10:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. Anton H 10:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

External links

Does anyone feel this one deserves to be there:

• Consciousness from Encyclopedia of Spiritual Knowledge

Though this will certainly offend the person who added the link if they read this, it seems like pure crackpottery to me, and it's very brief. Since it seems to have been added only recently it probably hasn't been reviewed, though I doubt of all articles out there on the web this one would have a place if this were a featured article. I'll let the frequent editors of this article decide whether they want it there or not. Richard001 11:27, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

This consciousness page is quite neuro-scientific... I've moved the spiritual discussion to "Higher consciousness." I think this better serves those who are interested in both the science of consciousness and the spirituality of consciousness. I'm still hoping for replies about disambiguation of consciousness (see below). --Dylanfly 20:09, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Definition by Jeff Hawkins

In the book On Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins defines consciousness as "what it feels like to have a cortex". Could this be worked in to the article? Sancho 06:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Sanchom, Thomas Nagel has written on "what-it-is-like" in his seminal paper "What is it like to be a bat?" and surely such a point is relevant to consciousness as subjective experience or creature consciousness.

However, there is more to conscious processing than the cortex. The cortex is associated with higher order functions. To exclude the amygdala when describing the neural basis for consciousness would be to exclude several emotions, such as fear. I therefore suggest that the proposed metaphor should not be worked into the article.

(I don't know what my cortex feels like, although I have heard descriptions about what it looks like in the open air (porridge after oxidation) :)

193.10.185.3 15:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation

I think the time has come to make this page dis-ambiguous. There is Consciousness, artificial consciousness, Political consciousness, Black Consciousness Movement, consciousness raising, and perhaps more. I'm concerned that this discussion of consciousness overwhelms the other common uses. --Dylanfly 21:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Besides the question of disambiguation, the big question is what to rename this page on consciousness? Perhaps Human consciousness? Or Consciousness (of self)? Or.... ????? Please speak up, folks. I think there's a rather urgent need to disambiguate, and we'll need a collective effort here. :) --Dylanfly 13:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I really need to hear from people... please. Consciousness is used so broadly on wikipedia and it makes for a horrible mess. About 100 religious/spiritual articles link here, for example, and most of them are really not related to what's being said here. So I'd like to go through a disambiguation. But what to call this page? Maybe self-conscious being ? Please chime in, friends. --Dylanfly 18:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

This article is about what philosophers and neuroscientists mean by consciousness. It might be renamed "consciousness (philosophy)" but I dont recommend this. This article discusses the mainstream meaning of the word "consciousness", the other uses are really about being conscious of or better still aware of something. Political, black, eco, etc. consciousness are post 1960's sound bites or catch phrases. Dypteran 11:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, good points. But, the "common" usage to which you refer is here slanted to have a purely scientific basis. Arguably, "consciousness" is a very, very common religious term; one which is not represented here. Also, the political connotations of consciousness are in very wide circulation indeed--that they it is a post-1960s usage does not lessen its importance. I feel that this article is heavily, unfairly, and inaccurately weighted to a neurological perspective on consciousness. For that purpose, it is an excellent article, but for the vast array of other uses, it does not work well at all. Thanks very much for the input, though. Let's hear from more people... --Dylanfly 19:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed, reading above, that you removed the bit of the article that covered spiritual/religious approaches. I am easy either way about the inclusion of the religious aspect but it seems odd that you removed it then find that the article lacks this aspect. Dypteran 19:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

RE: moving the spiritual component. I hear you. It was just such a tiny little, tacked on thing. It wasn't integrated at all. I think any attempt to create one unified page for consciousness is a bad idea. Marxist uses consciousness, spiritual consciousness, and neurological aspects of consciousness-----these things just don't mesh well. The fact that so many things in English use the same word leads to misunderstandings. Wikipedia will be improved once we disambiguate. I think the only other option is to create one massive consciousness page, but the neuro-science people active here have fought against that.--Dylanfly 12:59, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

External Link Video Add

I'd like to add a video of panelists from the University of Southern California discussing the concept of human consciousness. The link is http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=3783&fID=345 (this does not automatically open the video). Please let me know what you think. (ResearchChannel 19:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC))

Well... Taking a look at the video, it seems to me to be biased by exactly what it does not present. It does not present a single panelist actually working in the relevant sciences of Cognitive neuroscience, Psychology (the experimental portion, not the clincical part) or even Artificial intelligence. Instead the panel is composed of two physicists, two philosophers, and a "leading" parapsychologist (whatever that means). Honestly, I find the fact that USC produced this sort of biased sample of the relevant sciences to be a bit of an embarassment to an otherwise fine university. It's not as if they don't have qualified representatives, such as Antonio Damasio (now at USC) or Christof Koch (at CalTech) nearby. If it was added as an example of Chalmer's positions, or of Searle's views, perhaps, but this should certainly not be taken to be representative of consciousness studies as a field, simply because so much is left out, and is not indicated as having been left out. Edhubbard 21:17, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Philosophy of Mind---MERGE?

In the interest of disambiguation, I think perhaps we should MERGE the Philosophy of Mind section with said article.

I am unclear as to what section of the Philosophy of mind article you intend to merge. In general, I disgree with that on three grounds. First, the scope of philosophy of mind is greater than just the question of consciousness. Second, and conversely, consciousness is not merely a topic in philosophy of mind, but as has been noted already, neurology, cognitive psychology, and in various extended senses, even politics. Finally, the Philosophy of mind article is a featured article, so any changes to that article should be extensively discussed not only here but also there before anything happens. Edhubbard 21:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

This page is best made into a more strictly neurological view of consciousness, and we could then disambiguate from spiritual consciousness, political consciousness, philosophical views of consciousness, and many, many more. I think that, as it stands, this is not the page that people are looking for when they link from, say, Hare krishna.

The only alternative, as I see it, is to merge religious and political views here, but that would make a very cluttered article. This neurological page is so good as is. Can I hear reactions about disambiguation of consciousness and the proposed removal of philosophical approaches? Cheers, --Dylanfly 16:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Or, this could be an umbrella page, with {{main}} links throughout the body and very brief (two sentence) summaries for each sub-section. I'd say this page should encompass a broad but shallow definition of consciousness, with each paradigm having it's own separate page with a main. You could have Consciousness (neurology), Consciousness (philosophy), Consciousness (politics) mains and make this a much shorter article. It'd be a big job though. WLU 16:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I second this notion. Further, I wonder if there is an intellectually sustainable distinction between Consciousness (religion) (or Consciousness (meditation)) and Consciousness (philosophy). I don't think it would be too big a job -- except for getting consensus. DCDuring 20:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Vis a vis the discussion of splitting the topic of Consciousness into separate sections (Neurology and Philosophy; Political Consciousness could perhaps be subsumed under the topic of [memes]): if this is not done then it will be inferred that only the Neurological approach to Consciousness – particularly the materialistic view of e.g. Daniel Dennett – is correct; or that this is the standard by which other approaches should be judged. The fact that other schools of thought exist – even within the neuroscience community – implies that Neurology is not necessarily the only valid approach to the question of what Consciousness is. It may not even be the most fruitful approach in the long run. SamMart 16:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC) Sam

Putting any of the consciousness material under memes seems like a stretch, IMHO. Any discussion of anything close to an idea could be placed in memes because there will be some host population in which that idea evolves. Could you explain the rationale for the identity of political consciousness and memes for purposes of making them the same entry? DCDuring 20:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The "materialist view of e.g., Dennett" is actually the more or less the most commonly accepted view in neuroscientific circles, and there are plenty of other philosophers that hold generally materialistic views of consciousness. There are certainly some, like Penrose, who feel otherwise, but Penrose's view is certainly far from mainstream, even though it gets a lot of press... Edhubbard 21:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Great points, gents. But Dennett or not, the question before us is whether and how to disambiguate the page. Right now a thousand articles land here and only half are really speaking about the neurological sense of consciousness. What might be the name of this page? WLU seems to suggest Consciousness (neurology). Seems pretty decent to me. --Dylanfly 19:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

There already is a Political consciousness page, admittedly a weak one, but it could be a start. The Higher Consciousness page that Dylanfly off-loaded some material to from this page is also a good start. DCDuring 20:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I thought Dylanfly was exaggerating when he said there were a thousand links to Consciousness. Not really. Some of them are through the Conscious redirect page, but a lot of them are direct. Even efter excluding User page links and WP page links and the redirect links, there are still hundreds. Those links embody some user expectations that we need to respect. Are there any statistics available on the usage of internal links ? DCDuring 20:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the current page steers the sort of general course that is necessary with a subject that is as wide and potentially woolly as "consciousness". It gives people a sort of "taster" for the subject. The link to Philosophy of mind at the beginning of the philosophy section is good and similar links should head all of the sections. Incidently, the philosophy section of this article is pretty cool, using Block's diplomatic solution to defuse violent debate. So, I am in favour of leaving the the general structure of the article as it is. Incidently, although I am a great Iain Banks fan, it is not true that most neuroscientists adhere to Dennett's views, whatever gave Edhubbard that idea? I worked in the field for a while and believe that there were a wide range of ideas on consciousness amongst neuroscientists but most agreed with Crick that correlates of consciousness are an adequate basis for research. BTW, the philosophy of mind article is a good intro to the academic philosophy of this subject and might be ruined by a merger, people get hot under the collar about consciousness but are more laid back about academic philosophy of mind. Dypteran 14:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I just had a look at the talk page for philosophy of mind, it is a featured article. This reinforces my view given above: don't spoil a really good article by merging it with an article that is always going to cause contention!. The consciousness article is a good place to deal with passions and disambiguations, it can then link out to the calmer waters of other articles for full treatments of each aspect of the subject. Dypteran 11:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Sapience in definition of consciousness?

I'm a little surprised to see sapience in the first sentence as part of the definition of consciousness. It's probably a sufficient condition but it's hardly a necessary one, is it? I see it was added in April 2004 in this revision http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Consciousness&oldid=3273536 I'm tempted to remove it. Any comments on whether it should stay? Brian Fenton 19:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. If wisdom is associated with gained knowledge then consciousness as subjective experience is a prerequisite for acquiring knowledge, hence wisdom. E.g. if animals (e.g. dolphins) are conscious beings then we would need to consider them as having wisdom (which I take to be something over and above intelligence). I have never heard of a "wise ape", perhaps in Aesop's fables there are wise non-human animals... Ostracon (talk) 17:25, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Eastern philosophies on consciousness

There is no mention on this page of the views of eastern philosophies on consciousness (samkhya, yoga, vedanta which I am most familiar with, but maybe also buddhist, chinese, etc...). Maybe a paragraph or two should be added for that, especially since their view on consciousness is radically different from western. See my comment on Discussion page for mind. NikNovi 11:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Although I don't know much about them, Buddhist philosophy definitely includes some significant ideas about consciousness. I'm going to add a {{globalize}} tag.Tyharvey313 (talk) 10:24, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Consciousness and Ethics

IMHO, the application to ethics section before the TOC is not relevant to consciousness in general and should be moved to a separate section of the article.Ostracon (talk) 17:28, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Suggested changes to 'description and location of phenomenal consciousness'

I'd like to suggest the following changes:

Philosophers have investigated phenomenal consciousness for centuries. René Descartes, who arrived upon the famous dictum 'cogito ergo sum', wrote Meditations on First Philosophy in the seventeenth century, containing extensive descriptions of what it is to be conscious. Descartes described conscious experience as ideas such as imaginings and perceptions laid out in space and time that are viewed from a point, this notion of interchangeability can cause confusion among modern readers. Like Aristotle Descartes defines ideas as extended things, as in this excerpt from his Treatise on Man:

Now among these figures, it is not those imprinted on the external sense organs, or on the internal surface of the brain, which should be taken to be ideas - but only those which are traced in the spirits on the surface of gland H (where the seat of the imagination and the 'common sense' is located). That is to say, it is only the latter figures which should be taken to be the forms or images which the rational soul united to this machine will consider directly when it imagines some object or perceives it by the senses.

Thus Descartes does not identify mental ideas or 'qualia'with activity within the sense organs, or even with brain activity, but rather with interaction between body and the 'rational soul', through the mediating 'gland H'. This organ is now known as the pineal gland. Noting that, anatomically, while the human brain consists of two symmetrical hemispheres the pineal gland, which close to the brain's centre, is singular. Thus Descartes identified it as the mediator between body and soul.

Other philosophers agreed with Descartes to varying degrees, such as Nicolas Malebranche, Thomas Reid, John Locke, David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Malebranche, for example, agreed with Descartes that the human being was composed of two elements, body and mind, and that conscious experience resided in the latter. He did, however, disagree with Descartes as to the ease with which we might become aware of our mental constitution, stating 'I am not my own light unto myself'. David Hume and Immanuel Kant also differ from Descartes, in that they avoid mentioning a place from which experience is viewed (see "Further reading" below); certainly, few if any modern philosophers have identified the pineal gland as the seat of dualist interaction.

The extension of things in time was considered in more detail by Kant and James. Kant wrote that "only on the presupposition of time can we represent to ourselves a number of things as existing at one and the same time (simultaneously) or at different times (successively)." William James stressed the extension of experience in time and said that time is "the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible."

Any thoughts or objections? I know citations are needed, but this is beyond me at the mo. Visual Error (talk) 01:26, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Not bad, at all. I can provide citations, but I don't know how to format them. Janice Rowe (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 00:01, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Janice - I've inserted the text with a few changes. There's some reference templates here, actually - will they help? Visual Error (talk) 00:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Consciousness based ethics

What is the word, if there is one (I suspect there isn't), for the ethical position that for an entity to be granted any ethical consideration, it must be conscious? For example, such a person would place no intrinsic value or non-conscious abstract entities like Gaia or biodiversity, or to non-conscious tangible things like rivers, trees and mountains (I suppose there are some who would believe some or even all of those things are conscious, however I can hardly take such views seriously), and dead people and animals (unless you believe in some sort of afterlife; note that future people, and animals for that matter, would most certainly be given consideration as they will exist at some point). Such people, like myself, could still hold a variety of views, from virtue ethics to consequentialism, but would be united by this common foundation (the main philosophy specifically inconsistent with this, or so it seems to me, is deep ecology). Is there any word for such a position, or does anyone know if it has even been discussed anywhere? (It should also be mentioned in the article, of course). On the other hand, if it hasn't I really think someone ought to do so... Richard001 (talk) 11:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

No response... and from my inquiries there doesn't seem to be a word for this approach either. Perhaps someone will come up with one some day. In the mean time, we need more on the relationship between consciousness and ethics. The book I'm reading at the moment (End of Faith by Harris) takes this consciousness oriented approach. I'm sure lots of others do too of course; there should be no shortage of sources to draw from, even if there is no word for what it is that they're all talking about. Well, since I'm unlikely to add anything myself any time soon I'll just add it to a to-do list. Richard001 (talk) 09:34, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Would a wolf’s behaviour be ethical? It certainly seems so to environmentalists, unless they are chased by one. But then they would not have time to think how just the wolf might be.

Consciousness based ethics is rather weak in human and nonhuman sense. I would suggest a reversal: ethics based consciousness.

Forms of cooperation within and between species extend far beyond animal kingdom and offer better foundation for what we might consider as ethics. Only when we have some respect for others we can start imagining how it is in their shoes – consciousness. Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 00:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Pigeons cant pass the mirror test

The experiment has never been replicated independently. Only pigeons trained to pass the mirror test, are able to do so. There is a great youtube video on this, but here are three super credible references.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/k728202u2g4517u2/ (your college has to subscribe to this or else you can't view) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T2J-3W3NFT8-7&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f699c7e49a2d90a12b61068234f7c6e3 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-pigeons/

I suggest taking the pigeons out of the consciousness article, as it only brings down the credibility of this article and wp. Also, probably the same pigeon loon has notoriously tried to place this "fact" into other non-related articles about psychology and neurobiology. I don't dare delete it because I dont want any retaliation, so if someone else is brave enough to remove the pigeon outta the list, be my guest. Sentriclecub (talk) 11:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation Needed

The word “consciousness” obviously needs to be disambiguated. Phenomenal consciousness is sensations rich, while psychological or neurological consciousness is hardly so. This everybody can demonstrate to himself/herself by simple opening and closing his/hers eyes.

I would, therefore, suggest that this article makes this distinction and that our colleagues in psychology arena write about consciousness from their perspective. In psychology, this is well researched topic.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 03:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

In response I will here try to disambiguate what needs disambiguation and will try to unite what needs not. Phenomenal consciousness emphasizes that there is a quality to consciousness, it is either felt as so and so, in other words that consciousness is experienced. In extension, on the view that consciousness is subjective experience, there exists a perceiver and the experience is private to the person undergoing the experience. Now, if there is someone who perceives, then were is this perceiver? Is it me? Yes. Is it my body? No, that cannot be entirely correct. If I lose my leg I am still conscious. Is it my brain then? On this question, researchers disagree, however, cognitive neuroscientist believe that there is a relationship between consciousness and the brain. If we remove a part of the brain, or someone gets injured, they might experience changes in their subjective experience (i.e. consciousness). So... Consciousness probably has something with the brain to do, but what is the relation?

Psychology, as one textbooks defines it (Passer and Smith), is the science of mind and behavior. If psychology was only about behavior (as it were from 1913 and towards the sixties), which some psychologists still hold today, then consciousness would not need to be studied by psychologists. However, psychology is about the mind as well. Within the philosophy of mind and in the cognitive neuroscience it is widely accepted that consciousness is an aspect of mind. That is why psychologists study it. The mind has some relation to the brain. That is why cognitive neuroscientists study it. Finally--from a very general perspective--neuropsychologists study the relationship between psychological phenomena and the brain. Subjective experience or phenomenal consciousness is being studied in studies of the experience of pain using methods belonging to cognitive neuroscience.

What happens in the mind is not independent from what happens in the brain. Nevertheless, I understand why this relation seems tricky. As one philosopher said (not an accurate quote): "How does this lump of grey produce technicolor experience?"

I hope this helps to clear up some of the confusion about consciousness.

Regards,

Ostracon (talk) 20:06, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Dear Ostracon,

In science and in philosophy (and elsewhere) we should have only two rules:

1) Observe, observe, observe... (data)

2) Simplify, simplify, simplify... (theories)

Instead, we too often cling to old theories and philosophical musings. And we cling to them desperately, closing our eyes to anomalies that inundate us. Descartes’ theory of how we see, think and act is one of these confusing the issue with due date long past.

Nancy Kanwisher, for example, found that our brain lights up in exactly the same way when we imagine (closed eyes) or actually see (open eyes) the same. This means that infinite variety of shapes and colours (open eyes) does not reach our brain (closed eyes). She also found that recognition starts with vague categories adding weight to active perception theory (PA). Libet’s findings on half a second delay puts a big question mark over our mused about decision making process. And there are many other findings scientists hold in their pockets, but shy to spell out a coherent theory.

The emerging picture is of a brain as orientating tool that help us to navigate through our open eyes world - world full of infinite varieties of sensations. Such world would be too much for our poor brain. It is much more practical for our brain to tell us what to expect where - recognition. It is also much more practical for our brain to help us to quickly build up details of what to expect where - cognition. (This building up of details could be imagined as using Lego blocks. Nose like Fred’s, chin like Mark’s, etc.)

The article is quite good from philosophical and historical perspective. Unfortunately, we do not have a coherent philosophical view that includes latest scientific findings (and makes some sense from them). This is why I suggested disambiguation to present latest findings on consciousness in psychology and neurology (please do not use neuroscience - tautology).

So, let’s get out of this mess. Open your eyes (data) then close them and try to imagine the same. Note the difference and simplify, simplify, simplify...

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 23:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Commentary on the First Section

Consciousness is not a point of view
First paragraph, "Consciousness is a point of view"

This seems to stem from a confusion between the first-person perspective and subjectiveness. They are interrelated but not the same thing. I suggest removal of this description.

Confusing Introduction
I personally find Julian Jaynes evolutionary perspective on consciousness to be controversial. Might I suggest that the introduction would be fine without the 'inner space' commentary, which appears confusing to me in comparison to the views of Block and Nagel. However, that consciousness is not cognition is a good point and may be kept in the introduction.

The Role of the Neurosciences
Neuroscience is a broad area building upon several sub-disciplines. The united field of neuroscience was not established until 1971. Since neuroscience also regards aspects of the brain that do not involve mental processes the claim that consciousness is a subject in "neuroscience" is not entirely true. If we consider that:

1. Mental processes are biological features of the brain (Searle)

2. Consciousness involves mental processing (i.e. it probably has something with the brain to do)

3. The sub-discipline of neuroscience that studies mental processes--i.e. the biology of the mind (Gazzaniga)--is "cognitive neuroscience"

..."neuroscience" ought to be replaced with "cognitive neuroscience".

Neither behavioral nor basic neuroscience aims to understand consciousness.

Philosophical Stances on Consciousness
Are "personal identity" and "phenomenology" really stances on consciousness? Personal identity might depend on a concept of consciousness, but consciousness is not the central issue here - except on some views. Phenomenology (in the philosophical sense) refers to an approach to consciousness, however, does not necessarily presume a certain view of consciousness. It is more a method of inquiry than a philosophical stance. It certainly entails certain presuppositions, but it offers in itself no clear-cut answer to the ontological problems of consciousness, without first applying the phenomenological method. Moreover, a textbook would probably introduce dualism, monism, idealism and perhaps even pan-psychism for starters. These are ontological views, and the article may improve in clarity if they be separated from behaviorism, functionalism, identity theory (which has little to do with personal identity) and so on.

Ostracon (talk) 20:06, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Consciousness defies definition.

I love the first line :P It's hard to explain it isn't it LuGiADude (talk) 18:21, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

IMHO this is a poor way to begin an introduction. The word clearly has a meaning, so give a definition or definitions. Ben Finn (talk) 17:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

It looks very unprofessional to begin the Lead that way. Of course, we can never attain clear definition of what consciousness is until we know a great deal more about it, but for now, we should stick with a working definition, not this mystical sounding jargon. Stampit (talk) 15:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Cognitive Neuroscience

I'm a cognitive neuroscientist, and I would just like to point out that 'Consciousness' is a four-letter word in my research group. We tend to define "cognition" as physiological activity of the nervous system that does not directly effect a change in another organ system ('behavior you can't see', more or less), and we are perfectly able to go about our business without mentioning 'consciousness' or 'awareness' or anything of that sort... we leave those wishy-washy semantic arguments to the philosophers. As scientists, the only evidence we have of these pseudo-notions is from introspection and oral report... neither of which are reliable sources of information. My experience from attending conferences and such is that alot of cognitive neuroscientists share our point-of-view, and those that attempt to study 'consciousness' are definately in the minority and tend to be viewed with heavy skepticism by the field at large. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.132.48 (talk) 16:12, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

You are wrong: "consciousness" is a thirteen-letter word. (Okay, sorry, I couldn't resist.) Anyway, I'm not sure I understand what point you are trying to make. I'm a cognitive neuroscientist myself, and I agree with you that the notion of "consciousness" is too nebulous to be very useful in scientific research, but however nebulous it is, the word does have some meaning to the general public, and it seems reasonable to have a Wikipedia article that explicates that meaning, and explores the scientific information we have that is relevant to it. Looie496 (talk) 16:51, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

My point is simply that most scientists would argue that 'consciousness' is a purely philosophical issue and science can't even approach it on basic theoretical grounds (at least not yet, given our current empirical abilities). Thus, it's really a matter of taste if you wish to say that split-brain research, mirror tests, blindsight, binocular rivalry, etc. are relevant to 'consciousness'. We simply don't know how these lines of research apply to consciousness, experiential qualia, "rich inner life", or whatever you want to call it. Of course, a few folks out there (i.e.: Koch, Pinker, Dennett, Chalmers) are going to latch on to science that seems to support their models and say that such science is 'the study of consciousness', but the scientists themselves (the good ones, anyway) would never make such an outlandish claim. As it is, the article seems to suggest that there is a real, valid scientific investigation into the 'hard problem of consciousness'... which I feel is misleading. I'm not saying that it doesn't belong in the article, but I'd like to see a caveat or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.132.234 (talk) 14:58, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you're willing to go to the effort of looking up reputable sources who say the same thing—and I don't have the slightest doubt that such sources can be found—then you should feel free to edit the article to put a caveat of that sort into it. Looie496 (talk) 16:27, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I wish I had time for that. Maybe after the SfN conference. Ironically, a quick search of "consciousness" on PubMed turns up over 23,000 results! Really, though, it's just a straightforward logical argument: by definition (i.e.: the meaning with respect to the general public), consciousness is a personal thing, a "rich inner life" that is not accessable to outside observation. Thus, since it is not observable, it is not studiable by empirical means. Simple as that. I'll track down a source that says the same one of these days... it could make a nice little letter to Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Ok, so after I wrote that sentence, I decided to check out TiCS, and I did find one interesting little opinion letter (Kurthen M, Grunwald T, Elger CE. Will there be a neuroscientific theory of consciousness? (1998). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2(6), 229-234.) The authors basically argue that for a scientific approach to be valid, "consciousness" must be redefined. Here's the abstract:

"Neuroscientists and philosophers nowadays claim that the problem of phenomenal consciousness is a scientific problem. Increasing knowledge of the neural correlates of consciousness is expected to yield an explanation of consciousness in neuroscientific terms. On the other hand, it is sometimes argued that even complete knowledge of brain function will leave unanswered the question of why cerebral processes are accompanied by consciousness at all. Proponents of this view assume an unbridgeable ‘explanatory gap’ between the brain and the whole realm of phenomenal consciousness. Here, it is argued that this ‘explanatory gap’ problem can not adequately be met by current neuroscientific approaches to consciousness, while purely philosophical approaches remain controversial because they inevitably reach a level of contradictory intuitions that do not seem to be resolvable by further argument. However, the problem may be resolved once one accepts that the features of consciousness itself might change with our judgments and descriptions of consciousness inspired by neuroscience. Such a ‘change of consciousness’ becomes realistic when consciousness is construed as a description-dependent, ‘non-intrinsic’ property. Hence, it is argued that neuroscientists are right not to try to refute the explanatory gap argument, but that they should continue research on the neural correlates of consciousness, thus preparing new descriptions of phenomenal consciousness."

The authors go on to say that we will basically have to ignore the "seemingly impressive and enigmatic 'subjective character' of p-conscious states. (p.233)" Problem solved. Actually, they argue that p- (or, phenomenal) consciousness doesn't really exist, but is some sort of cultural construct. It reminds me of another TiCS article I once read that had something in the title like "Explaining it or explaining it away", if you get my drift.

Of course, any work out there that supports my claim is necessarily going to be an opinion paper, rather than basic research, so something like this might be the best I can do. This one probably has it's place in the article, but I suppose there are better one's out there that aren't written by wackjobs (I'll have to look elsewhere than TiCS for that, though!)

Anyway, someday I'll get my ducks in a row and put a little "skeptics" section in after the "cognitive neuroscience" section... it could make a nice project for a grad student. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.132.234 (talk) 14:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Nobody said it would be easy. People as respected as Antonio Damasio, Gerry Edelman, and Christof Koch wouldn't write books about the neural basis of consciousness if there was some obvious argument to shoot it down. The really difficult and annoying thing about this issue is that when you start looking into it, you find that everybody has a slightly different understanding of what the word "consciousness" ought to mean, and so when you've persuaded one person that you're right, you find that a bunch of others don't even agree that you've addressed the question. Looie496 (talk) 16:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

People write books with narrow definitions in order to make their theories work, all the time. Damasio himself states that his view of consciousness is defined by his science, not that his science defines consciousness. Hopefully, someday, people editing this article will see the difference. And, the anonymous neuroscientist to whom you are responding represents a well-established and well-argued position in the field, so I'm not sure where you're getting the "he's only persuaded one person argument." This question comes up and is argued vociferously at every conference on consciousness I've heard about or read about.Levalley (talk) 00:34, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It should also be noted that the mere fact that there are 23,000 hits in the PubMed database for "consciousness" suggests that a lot of practicing cognitive neuroscientists disagree with the strong conclusion that this is a purely philosophical topic. Indeed, the many books, and special issues, including those by the people mentioned above, on the topic of consciousness, and the neural mechanisms thereof, suggest that progress is (hopefully) being made on these topics. Among those researchers, some advocate something of a "direct" strategy, trying to take on something like Chalmer's "hard problem" (assuming such an entity is a coherent construct), while others argue that solving the problem of consciousness should proceed through an indirect strategy of understanding attention, working memory, etc, and that these will then render the so-called hard problem solvable. This strategy has a quite respectable scientific history, for example in understanding the mechanisms of life by carving off any sort of hard problem of "elan vital" or vital essence. A nice collection of recent empirical and theoretical work, from a cognitive neuroscience perspective on the question of why some experiences are conscious and others not (still, perhaps not the so-called hard problem, but that might be best addressed by philosophers like Dennett and Churchland who argue that this is an incoherent concept) can be found on my former post-doc advisor's page here [1] Edhubbard (talk) 00:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Clearly, it does not follow from "the mere fact" that there are 23,000 hits in PubMed for "consciousness" that a lot of practicing cognitive neuroscientists disagree that this is a purely philosophical topic. Firstly, more than half of the articles are over 10-years old, but that is a minor point. More importantly, many of the articles come from such illustrious (note sarcasm) journals as Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine with titles such as "Apitherapy: Usage and Experience in German Beekeepers". Or how about "Alien abduction: a medical hypothesis." in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry. If anything, the pervasion of articles with the term "consciousness" is more supporting of the argument that the term is hopelessly ill-defined and whimsically bandied about by anybody that cares to do so. Actually, I'm being a little unfair: a lot of those PubMed articles are studies involving people's "health-consciousness".

Anyway, I followed your link to Dehaene's page, and looked over the references there. So, I pulled my copy of Gazzaniga off the shelf and reviewed Dehaene and Changeux's chapter there. Here is one notable quotation which nicely summarizes their general strategy:

"The context of consciousness is so broad and diverse and the issues are often so muddled (see Chalmers, this volume) that we deliberately limit ourselves here to only one aspect of consciousness, the notion of conscious access.... This discussion will aim at characterizing the crucial differences between those aspects of neural activity that can be reported by a subject and those that cannot. According to some philosophers, this constitutes an 'easy problem' and is irrelevant to the more central issues of phenomenality and self-awareness (e.g., Block, 1995). Our view, however, is that conscious access is one of the few empirically tractable problems presently accessible to an authentic scientific investigation..." (p. 1145 in Gazzaniga's The Cognitive Neurosciences III; I'm hoping they meant "currently" rather than "presently", which means that we don't even have that problem accessible to us yet!).

Compare that to the prior comment that a scientific study of consciousness is possible only if we ignore the "seemingly impressive and enigmatic 'subjective character' of p-conscious states." I would also argue to Dahaene that just because a person reports an experience doesn't mean that they actually "had" that experience. We only have data that they reported that experience, and we haven't gained any access to their "rich inner life". I agree that we can study behaviors such as attention and working memory, but the notion that any advances in those realms are going to render the hard problem solvable by scientific method is simply false. That is because the hard problem, by it's very definition, posits an "elan mental" that is not observable from the "outside". It pure and simply cannot possibly be approached by scientific means, by definition.

It seems, then that your complaint is (following Chalmers, Nagel, Jackson and others) that no matter what happens in cognitive neuroscience, there is a priori something that all empirical approaches to the problem of consciousness must leave out (the problem of qualia or subjective experience). If this is basically your complaint, then the cognitive neuroscience section probably is not the right section for any possible additions, but rather in the philosophy sections. On this subject, I again refer you and others following this discussion to counterarguments that question the coherence of the so-called "hard problem"/"easy problem" distinction by Chalmers' and counter-arguments to such Nagel/Jackson subjective experience complaints by their fellow philosophers, Daniel Dennett, and Pat and Paul Churchland. As soon as we enter into the realm of discussion that a problem is a priori, or supposedly outside the realm of experimental investigation, then we return back to the philosophical arguments. I personally find the Dennett and Churchland style counter-arguments compelling, but that is a discussion pitched at the philosophical, not empirical level. Of course, these levels are not, and should not, be entirely distinct, in that empirical data can respond to philosophical questions, and philosophical work informs and guides all that we do empirically, but the appropriate responses to a priori style arguments are philosophical, not empirical. Edhubbard (talk) 20:18, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I concur with that. However, the extent of the philosophical part of my argument extends only as far as the philosophy of science, rather than any philosophical argument about the subject of this article, which is why I supposed it was better suited to the section of the article dealing with science (I can see both point's of view, however, and I will consider where it would be best suited). Also, it seems to me that this article is in fact covering two separate constructs: one construct that roughly corresponds to the "folk" notion of what is meant by "consciousness", and another construct that follows that same notion up to the point beyond which science cannot follow. However, this distinction is not made plain.

As an aside, while I can totally understand Dennett's line of reasoning (denying the hard problem), following that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion would essentially mean that "consciousness" doesn't exist and would hence preclude this article entirely (to which I'm not necessarily opposed). That is, what makes "consciousness" distinct from what I would term mere "cognition" is precisely the hard problem.

The logical conclusion is that consciousness as the layman might imagine it doesn't exist, but only because the layman doesn't understand the nature of consciousness. There is no hard problem because consciousness doesn't involve any sort of inherently internal states that cannot, even in principle, be known from outside. Qualia can't be explained, but they don't need to be, because they don't exist. 08:43, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Interesting that you call consciousness a "four-letter word" because meuro-science is an oxymoron, since neuro- is physical, whereas consciousness is not - it is not a physical universe phenonemon (it's a spiritual one). Michael Hodgson (talk) 03:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Consciousness is entirely physical; it is the behavior of certain animals. There is no such thing as spiritual; it is an empty category. 08:43, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

This argument does not belong here. This page is about ways to improve the article, not about the topic itself. There is no point in making assertions unless you can give reputable sources for them. Looie496 (talk) 19:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

It would definitely improve the article if the definitions and breadth of the article reflected what's in this talk page. If you can't use the talk page to discuss the topic, the talk page is useless. Ways were suggested to improve the article, but as usual, people with expertise in the field don't have the time or inclination to do more than suggest. Wikipedia is not user-friendly to experts. It would improve the article to have expert input, that's for sure.Levalley (talk) 00:34, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

A Small But Pernicious Mistake

I made the (since reversed) addition in the "description and location" section that Descartes' noting the uniqueness of the pineal gland was in error. I understand my use of "studies" in the addition forced a need for a citation, and accept the reversal; but Descartes was in error, if only in the pineal gland's apparent singularity. I would still like this portion to be changed to reflect that fact, since "Descartes noted" seems to give some authority to the idea. Although the idea of the pineal gland as seat of consciousness is a concept long discarded in serious philosophy, I feel that allowing the text to stand as it is may mislead those who don't know the history of the search for a singular seat of consciousness or the particulars of the gland that are shown in its own Wikipedia article. Electric Sharpie (talk) 16:18, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I guess my point of view would be that it's okay to mention the dual nature of the pineal here if you can give a source to support it -- pineal gland states it but doesn't give a source for the information. Looie496 (talk) 22:27, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Deleted External Link should be reconsidered for inclusion

This EL added on January 6 and immediately deleted is justified in that it complies with the guidelines for EL. Ergo: "What should be linked: 1. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons; 2. Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews.

• This link is first and foremost relevant to the article as it is a discussion site of a renowned "philosopher" and "teacher" on the recondite subjects of self-knowledge, the mind and brain, thought and consciousness - J. Krishnamurti. Take a look at the voluminous references & bibliographies appended to the referenced WP article on him, which itself is more lengthy than the article on the Buddha. This gives some indication of the standing of this "teacher" in contemporaneous research on thought and consciousness; this material has been the subject of numerous academics and scientists, and there are a number of extant academic monographs on it.
• The 39-page linked site is neutral and unbiased. It is not a religious site and there is no POV. It is extremely relevant material on consciousness per se as it deals with the structure of the mind and the process of thought.
• Including this relevant site is not advertising or self-promotion. It is a valuable adjunct for researchers and interested people into the whole subject of consciousness.
• Also note this guideline: "Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources." This link is appropriate under this guideline.
• WP is replete with EL's of dubious relevance. This site is informative and exceedingly relevant; for all the above reasons I will reinstate this link unless a cogent reason is given why it should not be considered.

QuantumOne (talk) 05:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree that some of the links were to fringe views that were receiving WP:UNDUE weight even by being mentioned, so I've cleaned out the list a bit. 00:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spotfixer (talk • contribs)

Since consciousness is kind of a nebulous topic in the first place, I'm reluctant to rule out a Krishnamurti-related site -- not that I know anything about Krishnamurti. But I looked at that site, and it's awful. Regardless of the content, it's too ugly and poorly laid out to link to. (The red blood cell thing obviously doesn't belong, but that isn't QuantumOne's contribution.) Looie496 (talk) 01:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Some of the other sites were for theories that I don't take much more seriously than the red blood cell one, but at least they were from reputable philosophers and cognitive scientists, and even though I might chuckle at them, they're taken more or less seriously within their fields. Krishnamurti is, at best, a historical curiosity whose ideas were never that important and certainly do not currently hold enough sway to be notable. Spotfixer (talk) 02:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed link to canonizer.com open survey topic on theories of consciousness

Listing of various approaches is useful, but some of these approaches are much better and well accepted than others. Canonizer.com is a wiki system with 'camps' and survey capabilities being designed to enable rigorous, dynamic, collaborative development and measurement of philosophic consensus as the field progresses.

An example philosophy of consciousness would be the consciousness is representational and real camp showing a significant early lead in the amount of consensus it has compared to all other theories so far. The members of that camp believe no other theory will be able to ever match their early lead, and that ultimately the demonstrable scientific proof will convert everyone else into this camp revealing it be THE ONE true theory. Of course until we have scientific proof one way or another, many will disagree. Canonizer.com seeks to rigorously measure this discovery process, for all theories, as the field progresses towards what some argue could be THE greatest scientific discovery of all time.

Proposed Miscellaneous sites Addition:

• Canonizer.com open survey topic on theories of consciousness. Anyone can participate in the survey or ‘canonize’ their beliefs. Expertise of participators is determined by a Peer Ranking Process that can be used to produce a quantitative measure of philosophic consensus for each theory.

Brent_Allsop (talk) 21:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems like there is unanimous agreement that this addition is OK so I'm adding it. Brent_Allsop (talk) 19:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm still not in favor of it but I don't object strongly enough to stop you. "Unanimous" here means that you favor it and nobody else is speaking out against it (just to make the situation crystal clear). Looie496 (talk) 19:31, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I've removed that link. I don't think that that sort of invitation to participate is at all appropriate to an encyclopedia. It would open for a rush of fora for discussing one thing and another, such as various diagnoses. Cheers, Hordaland (talk) 16:30, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Chalmers

I want to discuss some recent action in the Phenomenology and access consciousness section. An IP editor made a series of additions concerning Chalmers and the hard problem of consciousness. These were reverted by Spotfixer (talk · contribs) with an edit summary stating "(WP:UNDUE weight; Chalmers is taken seriously by some, but not many.)" I had been tempted to revert the addition myself on the grounds of being poorly written, but I have to take issue with this edit summary. Many people disagree with Chalmers, but nearly everything I have read takes his arguments seriously. I believe it would be quite appropriate to have material on this topic in the section, but I wish it could be more clearly written than what the IP editor added. Looie496 (talk) 17:46, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I freely admit that this isn't my field, but I did take a survey course on cognitive studies. Chalmers was covered specifically because his view was notable and definitely worth understanding, but not because it deserved to be accepted. To put it bluntly, without understanding what Chalmers believes, it's hard to see why he's completely and totally wrong, and therefore hard to avoid the same mistakes.

In the same way, this article should definitely mention and explain Chalmers' take on consciousness, but it would be a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE to treat it as if it were true, or even likely. We should have some material, but only some, and even then, it should be bracketed as being his view, not fact. And we should balance it with opposing views. Spotfixer (talk) 18:42, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Issues like this show how simple wikis just don't work on critically important issues like this. There needs to be some way to quantitatively measure how much scientific consensus there is for various ideas like those of Chalmers before you can know how much weight should be given to them. That is the goal with topics like this Theories of Consciousness topic. This topic is just getting started but already it is showing, quantitatively, that claims like: "Chalmers is taken seriously by some, but not many" are possibly mistaken. The scientific consensus being measured there is clearly showing, quantitatively, just how much weight true experts believe these ideas deserve. Chalmers' Consciousness Arises From Any Equivalent Functional Organization camp is supported by more experts at that level than any other theory or idea about consciousness. Brent_Allsop (talk) 20:07, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Chalmers, while problematic (and the way I read him, he knows he's limiting his scope for the purposes of argument) is nevertheless a very good starting place for many who want to understand the field. That's why he's taught so broadly in survey courses - he's work is accessible. Any time a person makes their work accessible to a broader audience (and Chalmers is read outside of philosophy, in a wide variety of fields) they are going to get flack from uber-specialists in their own field. Wikipedia is supposed to be accessible as well, and of course, comes under constant criticism from academic folk. But for the average educated reader, Wikipedia should provide basic understanding. There are other places to start, and Chalmers as a starting point may become obsolete. Anyway, it doesn't matter how many experts "take Chalmers seriously," it's enough that he's standard fare in basic courses in cognitive neuroscience and consciousness all around the world. Not a big fan of him, myself, but am trying to be fair.Levalley (talk) 00:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

consciousness

Hi -- I don't think it is useful to readers to link words like "philosopher", "scientist", and "universe". Also it's just plain wrong to link "nebulous" to fuzzy logic. I propose to undo these changes, but in the interest of not coming across as hostile, I thought it would be nice to get your reaction first. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 17:21, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the above. Furthermore the two sentences referring to "some philosophers" and "some scientists" are not suitable for many reasons - vague, unreferenced, inappropriate style, and just untrue. Of course the way the article currently looks might make a scientist cringe, but I'd say the same for a philosopher. The article needs work to simplify and de-jargonize it. But to the extent that a Wikipedia editor feels that a word is silly, then I think they should keep away from the article about that word or else go out and learn about the subject, and publish something respectable about that we can reference to.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:26, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

those are weasel words and if they're still in the article, should be tagged.--Levalley (talk) 00:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Answer to Looie496 observation

Hi Looie496,

thanks for contacting me before undoing my revision!
You seem to be a very undooing revisionist according to your latest english wikipedia contributions:
4 reverted edits on 7 in the last two days.
But please don't get me wrong!
I am a wikipedia administrator myself and I know there is loz of vandalism "out there".
So I also appreciate that you started a discussion with me telling what were your thoughts about my last three revisionson the consciousness wikipedia article.
This even if they are all negative (if not plain negative!).
Thanks for proposing me to undo these changes:
you are the very FIRST polite editor that I have encountered on wikipedia in the last SIX years writing me so nicely about undoing my changes.
Please give me 24 hours for thinking about it.
Please also consider writing something more about yourself in the meantime!

Noone is biting you...
Thanks for reading me.
(Good night? Duh? I don't even know time zone is!)

Maurice Carbonaro (talk) 21:10, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
P.S.: I am posting these two messages on the consciousness discussion page too in order to try involve other editors in the next 24 hours.

Lets work on the opening please.

I think the opening has to start with what is simple and what is most definitive about consciousness. Here is what we have today...

Consciousness may involve thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, dreams, and self-awareness.[1] It is variously seen as a type of mental state, a way of perceiving, or a relationship between self and other. It has been described as a point of view, an I, or what Thomas Nagel called the existence of "something that it is like" to be something.[2]

Many philosophers have seen consciousness as the most important thing in the universe.

On the other hand, many scientists have seen the word as too nebulous in meaning to be useful.

Consciousness is the subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. Issues of practical concern include how the presence of consciousness can be assessed in severely ill or comotose people;[3] whether non-human consciousness exists and if so how it can be measured; at what point in fetal development consciousness begins; and whether computers can achieve conscious states.[4][5][6]

In common parlance, consciousness sometimes also denotes being awake and responsive to the environment, in contrast to being asleep or in a coma.

Here is a draft for discussion...

Consciousness is most obviously being awake and aware - responsive to the environment, in contrast to being asleep or in a coma. In philosophical and scientific discussion however, the term is restricted to a more precise meaning related to the specific way in which humans are mentally aware in such a way that they distinguish clearly between themselves (the thing being aware) and all other things and events.

This "self-awareness" may involve thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, and dreams.

Consciousness is the subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. Issues of practical concern include how the presence of consciousness can be assessed in severely ill or comotose people;[3] whether non-human consciousness exists and if so how it can be measured; at what point in fetal development consciousness begins; and whether computers can achieve conscious states.[4][5][6]

Comments please.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The difficulty is that if you try to open with "Consciousness is most obviously X", there is no value of X that will gain consensus, among philosophers, scientists, or commonfolk. The term is usually no better defined in philosophical and scientific discussion than elsewhere -- most papers start out by saying something like, "consciousness is impossible to define but everybody knows roughly what it is". What you have described is a mixture of "medical consciousness" and "self consciousness", but there are many other aspects -- phenomenal consciousness, spiritual consciousness, conscious will, etc. If you talk to a random group of people, even experts, you will find wide disagreement about which of these is the essence of the matter. I tried to capture this in an earlier version of the article by starting with "Consciousness is a difficult term to define, because the word is used and understood in a wide variety of ways, so that it frequently happens that what one person sees as a definition of consciousness is seen by others as about something else altogether.". This sentence was however removed a short while ago by somebody who didn't like it. Looie496 (talk) 18:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

If you consider again, you may come to agree that my proposal is using "most obviously" in a way to replace what the old version had as "common parlance" (snobbish jargon). In other words, my proposal is to start with what is truly most obvious in a superficial way, being awake and aware. I think this puts the first sentence outside of controversy concerning whether it is true or not. Perhaps your concern is whether "most obvious" covers this. Maybe "most superficially obvious"? The concern I have with the opening you mention is simple. It is unclear and does not tell a reader anything. It verges on OR. It sounds like someone reflecting about the vagueries of consciousness on a Sunday afternoon over a snifter and after a good lunch. I have no problem with such talk, but in its place! :) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that what I'm saying is OR -- see for example Lycan, one of the most respected authorities. On the other hand there's no doubt you could cite authorities to back up your statements, for example Rosenthal, another respected philosopher. The devil of this topic is that the basic Wikipedia approach of relying on reputable authorities fails dismally, because the reputable authorities are all over the place. It is rare to find two who agree with each other on even the most basic aspects. Looie496 (talk) 21:29, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Well yes, and when the authorities are all over the place I think the obvious solution is to start with what is most superficially obvious in the into, and leave more complicated stuff in sections about specific approaches in the literature?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

---

The main problem, as I see it, is that we are putting just about everything into consciousness. In dreams, for example, we can be conscious (aware) of the fact that we are dreaming. In vivid dreams we also perceive without a clear external source of stimuli. (Vivid dreams occur in REM phase, indicating contribution of our eyes to the vividness.)

In my opinion, we have to disambiguate sensations (phenomenal consciousness) from our interpretations (meaning) of them. The prior is hard to talk about, since talk, in itself, is interpretation (meaning). The later is much easier to talk about, since we already interpreted our sensations. (See percept.) This puts our interpretations into spotlight. And our interpretations are dictated by our culture, previous experiences and mood we are in.

We also have to keep in mind that we would be hard pressed to remember anything that was not, at least mildly, emotionally charged. And without memory, thought would be impossible. And without thought we would lose just about everything we, humans, pride ourselves about.

The interpreter of our sensations interprets the most of our sensations that are within interpreting powers of our culture, experiences and mood. The most of these interpretations are vague and never filter down into our consciousness, unless they pass emotional threshold. Specifics of a beautiful woman, we never met before, will be drawn to our eyes. Specifics of suddenly met friend will also be drawn to our eyes. In any case, the build up of specifics will take time; in average half a second or more (see Benjamin Libet’s work on timing of our consciousness). If specifics are not built our friend might tell us later how she tried and failed to attract our attention.

Basically, what we become conscious of is already heavily interpreted for half a second or more. And these interpretations do distort our sensations, sometimes heavily. (See Zen philosophy, for example, for methods and techniques to minimise these distortions.) The volume and timing of what we become conscious of is well measured and we would do well to stick to facts. I would also suggest that we would do well by presenting the history of thought on consciousness in the light of these facts.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 00:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

So in concrete, what do you suggest for the Wikipedia article's opening lines? In the opening I proposed there is now a distinction made in the first line between awareness or being awake (like an animal can also be) and the specific type of self-awareness which humans have. It is this later, surely which involves the way humans "interpret meaning". So does this help?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:37, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Andrew,

I think that we need to demystify consciousness and your opening does not help here. First of all consciousness rather evolves as we grow into our culture. We cannot speak about conscious foetus. We can only speak about identity in the foetal stage of development. Many aspects of consciousness, like planning, are absent in toddlers, for example: Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told. Social aspect of consciousness starts evolving at ages four or five. (Excessive “mine-mine” phase countered by adults' urges to share.) Well documented cases of feral children also indicate non-developed or underdeveloped consciousness in human sense. Furthermore, we can discern some aspects of consciousness in other species. (See Alex the Parrot.)

If we accept that our interpreter evolves as we grow up into our culture, many puzzling aspects of our consciousness will start to make sense. Blind sight, for example, might be explained as interpretations with visual component missing.

I’m not yet sure how to translate all this into opening, but together we could think of something.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 00:46, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the problem some people will have with your approach is that you are heading towards equating conscious ONLY with being awake and aware, like an animal. You might be surprised but some people would argue that a foetus does not have conscioussness in the full sense. I believe the word has a broad everyday meaning and a more strict philosophical and scientific meaning. The two meanings are not in conflict normally, but they can be sometimes and we need to be careful of that. Obviously Wikipedia needs to show both meanings.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Andrew,

I urge you to read my words again. I do not equate consciousness with only being awake and aware, like an animal. I also argue that consciousness evolves as we grow up into our cultures. I’m also aware of ethical issues, but nurturing and protecting life does not need consciousness as an argument. This is rather an issue rooted in theological considerations; the same considerations that gave man right to use and abuse everything else in our environment.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 09:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure if I misread you to be honest. Note that I only said that your comments go in this direction. They go in this direction when I try to figure out how to make something that reflects your remarks in the opening text. (Easy for you to avoid this because you made no suggestion about what to change yet. :) ) Your new reply seems to indicate that you want to make some comment about the theological significance of consciousness? Tricky to do in a non-controversial way unless it is in a specialist section below? Or let me ask a question about this: is your point about the theological significance of consciousness not going to be strongly linked to (a) the theological significance of being human and (b) the link between what it is to be human and what it is to haev consciousness in the fullest sense of the word (or potentially)? If not then the fact that consciousness sensu strictu is human is in the opening as it now stands. All this may be irrelevant to what you really mean. I am struggling a bit to follow what your real point is, so have some sympathy for me on that!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:11, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Andrew,

I wrote: “First of all consciousness rather evolves as we grow into our culture. We cannot speak about conscious foetus.” And you replied: “You might be surprised but some people would argue that a foetus does not have conscioussness in the full sense.” As you can see, I cannot be surprised since I’m arguing the same. I’m also speaking about evolution of consciousness as we are growing up into our culture and that is definitely after our birth, although we may get some cultural hints during pregnancy. I'm also talking about culture (tought, language etc.) Does this mean animalism?

Reading what is written is much better than reading in. I’ll try to draft an opening in couple of days.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 04:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for revised lead

Dear all,

Here is my proposal for the opening well supported by scientific findings. Please note that I prefer non-consciousness (non-conscious) to unconsciousness (unconscious). Subconsciousness (subconscious) also seems inappropriate since it implies a hierarchy.

I also intend to add references once we agree on the content. Please, fell free to correct my grammar and other minor changes directly in the text. However, I would like substantive changes discussed separately.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 02:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear all,

I have added two more sources for the intro. I have also added links to other relevant articles to the text of the intro. The referred articles will add their intros, references and sources to complete the picture.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 02:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

---

Consciousness is the ultimate guide and mapmaker of our past and present interpretations of sensations. The most of sensations of our present are vaguely interpreted by our non-consciousness. In average, no more than seven, at the time, gain enough importance to be furnished with details during a noticeable delay; like when we unexpectedly meet a friend. (See Percept.) Consciousness also manages our intents, actions or inactions and vetoes unintended ones that would be socially unacceptable. As mapmaker, consciousness also interprets, at higher levels of abstractions, other interpretations. These, higher levels of abstraction, establish a coherent and easier to navigate whole enabling more reliable expectations and predictions for future moments of our lives.

Some of interpretations are inherited, while others have to be learned as we grow into our culture. Inherited interpretation, for example, is retina’s reaction to sensation of light. However, word “light” or that a shape is square has to be learned.

Contrary to some believes we are not fully conscious when we are born. Babies learn non-consciously and adults around a baby have to constantly repeat words and actions until first utterances are heard from the baby. Further down the timeline toddlers still lack planning dimension of our consciousness, while first signs of social dimension can be found between ages four and six. (See Child development.)

Fully evolved consciousness further enhances our learning capacity. This could be illustrated by learning a new dance. We see others dance and try to make the same moves, but they do not come out exactly as we would like them and we perform haltingly. This is the effect of veto power of our consciousness established by Doctor Benjamin Libet (“Mind Time”). Our consciousness observes our moves and when they do not match the intended, it halts actions initiated half a second earlier.

Various functions of consciousness are gradually diminished or entirely blocked as we fall asleep. There are claims though that consciousness could be awakened enabling purposeful actions in dreams. (See Lucid dream.) Different functions of our consciousness could also be diminished or disabled by injuries in our brain.

Philosophers rightfully point at raw sensations as the only source for all of our interpretations - phenomenal consciousness. This, hard problem of consciousness, prompted some to declare that richness of sensations we experience is illusion. Others are willing to accept the richness of sensations as a fact that is impossible to discuss, for any discussion is inevitably - interpretation. fMRI scans, on the other hand, have shown that richness of sensations does not reach our brain. Imagined or actually seen images produce practically same brain activities. To scientifically prove or disprove richness of sensations we subjectively experience, we will have to look outside of our brains.

History

The concept of consciousness emerged as an important topic among philosophers in early nineteenth century. However, the only way consciousness could be researched then was introspective and results were not reliable. This prompted many psychologists to distance themselves with rigorous behaviourism.

The twentieth century, however, offered new methods to detect and measure some manifestations of our subjective experiences. This gave a new momentum to scientific research that maps these manifestations, mostly our brain activity, with our subjective experiences. The last sixty years of research provided a wealth of data on consciousness, on perception and on what it means to be human in general. Interestingly, the research provided some support to David Hume’s insights.

---

Tentative Notes

Guide and mapmaker: Inside a London cab-driver's brain. (Brief summary.) Also. Our language is also mostly organised along spatial and temporal dimensions. For this we do not have confirming brain scans, but we do have well developed theories in general linguistics, for example.

Absence of rich sensations in the brain: Seeing and imagining are the same to the brain.

Initial vagueness of interpretations in the brain: Right before Your Eyes: Visual Recognition Begins with Categorization.

Toddlers do not have planning capacity: Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told.

“To be aware of conscious datum is to be sure that it has passed.” E. G. Boring, “The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness” (New York: Dower, 1963, p.228)

G. A. Miller, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two”, Psychological Review 63 (1956, 81-87, p. 81.)

---

Not sure where to step in here, but I like the way this section is going - it's doing something that I think Wikipedia really needs to do and that's use a bolder style in its leads. Make the reader understand and make them want to go on with the rest of the article. The various subtopics mentioned certainly need to be in the article and would pull it down to specifics that the average reader can understand and is interested in. Good job.Levalley (talk) 00:43, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for support. I also believe that leads should reflect current consensus of scientists and philosophers. And there is such consensus on consciousness I tried to articulate above. However, I do not believe that such leads are possible in the current organization of Wikipedia. (See discussion below.)

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 18:28, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

A call to discus intro

Dear all,

Please review my proposed intro and suggest changes. I especially invite Andrew to try to integrate his proposal. Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 00:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

---

There are many problematic things here. I think you need to propose changes in much smaller chunks, and be prepared to provide sources to justify them. Even the first sentence is a big problem: why is consciousness the "guide and mapmaker to the interpretation of sensations"? Many people would say that consciousness consists of the sensations themselves, not a "guide and mapmaker to their interpretation". Looie496 (talk) 02:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Looie496,

Frankly, I’m not interested in what would other people say. I’m much more interested in scientific findings that will support my statements. For your specific objection I offer one finding that directly supports my version: Seeing and imagining are the same to the brain. Now, if you try to memorise as much you can with your eyes open and then try to imagine the same with your eyes open, you might be able to notice an enormous difference. With your eyes closed there will not be richness of colours and their hues, for example. You will also not be able to imagine many objects you may count with your eyes open. Although with some, well practiced memory techniques you might be able to name many of them, you will be able to imagine only few at the time.

Another piece of the puzzle was also provided by Nancy Kanwisher: Right before Your Eyes: Visual Recognition Begins with Categorization. This piece of evidence supports initial vagueness of our perception that needs time for filling in the details.

Benjamin Libet’s findings are quite well presented on Wikipedia and I think that it is well incorporated in the opening. Roger Penrose’s, Abner Shimony’s, Nancy Cartwright’s and Stephen Hawking’s proposal that our consciousness can send our decisions back in time has been proven wrong. (For their proposal see their book “The Large, the Small and the Human Mind”.) You can perform the experiment that disproves their proposal yourself with a friend’s help. Ask your friend to hold a stick with the bottom next to your hand and suddenly drops it. Try to catch the stick as soon as possible and mark the stick where did you catch it few times. If your reflexes are average you will catch the stick with .2 sec delay. After that, try to slow down your reflexive reactions. If their proposal is right, you will be able to achieve smooth transition with .3, .4 and .5 sec reaction time. However, you will find out that suddenly you are able to catch the stick well after .5 sec reaction time.

Also. All these and other findings are big. And they do shatter many misconceptions we might have had about ourselves. I will also refer to Richard Gregory’s research. I would especially recommend his Recovery from Early Blindness - A Case Study. Some stuff I’ll save for the Perception article. It’s a bit messy now.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 05:47, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but Wikipedia articles don't aim to be about The Truth, they aim to be about "what other people say", namely the best published sources. Please read WP:OR if you haven't already. Looie496 (talk) 16:30, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Looie496,

You are right. It is about what other people say. And my intro is about what others say with results of their scientific research. This is why I refer to Benjamin Libet, for example. (Very hot topic.) And readers would like to read something that makes some sense of his findings.

Current intro and the rest of the article do not even mention the substance of these findings. There is only one, further reading entry. This is either selective presentation, incapacity to articulate something that would make sense or both.

I’m surprised that you are making such comments after I presented you with what other people say. All I did is to articulate the substance of what they say into a coherent whole with examples. The substance of what others say is also welcome, but not at expense of clarity and readability of the intro. If you haven’t noticed, I have already presented the issue of phenomenal consciousness. The rest can be presented in the body of the article.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 22:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you that Libet's work is interesting and relevant. But two items above you wrote "Frankly, I’m not interested in what would other people say", and now you have written "You are right. It is about what other people say". I think the real problem is that your English is not good enough for this. In writing about consciousness it is very important to use the right words or people will not understand you, and I'm afraid that you are not able to find the words to say what you mean. Looie496 (talk) 22:27, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Looie496,

The intended meaning was to establish scientific research as a criterion for intro. I did not expect attacks on technicalities, when it is clear that scientific research also qualifies as “what other people say”; even better - “what many other people say” (peer review and many other experiments confirming original results). I was rather hoping for a constructive discussion.

My English is not perfect and you can help here. That would be constructive. As for right words and expressions, where do you think issues are? Any suggestions?

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 23:27, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Quite honestly, I find the whole proposed introduction to be a mess. It lacks the proper encyclopedic tone. It is altogether too "flowery" or "poetic" and lacks the precision that would be required for an encyclopedia. It also too long by far (see lead). Finally, there are numerous statements that are written as if they were facts, but there is no mention of who believes these positions, nor are there references to support the facts (for example "Contrary to some believes we are not fully conscious when we are born." Who believes that we are fully conscious when we are born? Who argues against this idea? What evidence supports this claim? Especially, what evidence makes it so certain that it should be taken as a simple statement of fact here? None of this is appropriately addressed in that sentence. See for example, verifiability, and sources). As it is currently written, this proposal reads as a statement of the authors' personal opinion, not a summary of what scientific and philosophical research on consciousness might tell us about whether, and to what degree, infants are conscious. To put it bluntly, this proposal reads like an essay not a summary of other people's thinking. I have picked out only one particularly egregious example, but the whole proposal suffers these problems. To make this proposed lead appropriate for the article would require massive revisions, to the point where it would be more effective to simply start fresh. Edhubbard (talk) 19:52, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the proposal is very creative. But a Wikipedia article should not be original work. You say that you were trying to make this reflect scientific sources, but you don't cite them. You should try adding in those citations, but then I think the next problem that will follow is that you are synthesizing ideas you like, from sources you like, and emphasizing those. A Wikipedia article has to reflect the mainstream, and the opening even more so. An opening should also if possible make it easy for non specialized readers to understand as much as possible. I think you should aim to write an opening that reflects (a) what most people would agree with and (b) written in a way that no one is excluded from understanding it just because of esotericism.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:56, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Since Dibrism has, perhaps inadvisedly, brought some new eyes here, I'd like to repeat that I feel the lead of this article has gone a bit in the wrong direction over the past month. My preference would be to go back to this version of the lead, or something like it. Looie496 (talk) 21:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Dear Andrew and Ed,

I have invited you and others (from all projects interested) to offer constructive comments. When I looked at various opinions on consciousness, I realised that simple summing them up would likely produce an incomprehensible gibberish. Alternatively, if we eliminate all of contradictions between various views, we will be left with almost nothing.

It seemed obvious to me that we need a simple starting point with examples that will shed a light on all other views presented in the body of the article. To strengthen such starting point, I decided to use scientific findings. Unfortunately, scientists also do not agree on consciousness and we are here in limbo; without a clear picture of what consciousness might be.

Without a sort of agreement, I had to be a bit creative to satisfy Andrew’s (a) and (b). The result is now before you as a starting point for discussion. Ed could help in giving it encyclopaedic tone, while I’m working on verifiability and more sources that are now in tentative notes section. I will also try to shorten the intro, but this may be hard. As for, Looie496’s suggestion for intro, it seems to me preoccupied with difficulties to define consciousness. And I do not think that readers would like to read about difficulties instead of a simple intro with examples.

I would also suggest that we can be much better off with a kind of agreement. So, let’s start working on it. Other proposals are also welcome as long they respect Andrew’s (a) and (b).

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 23:16, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, now you've reached the heart of the matter: "When I looked at various opinions on consciousness, I realised that simple summing them up would likely produce an incomprehensible gibberish.". That's exactly right, but that's exactly what Wikipedia requires us to do, as best we can. You are trying to use this problem as an opportunity to present your personal views, but that won't work. Looie496 (talk) 01:57, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Dear Looie496,

You are again attacking on technicalities, without offering anything constructive. If there is no agreement outside Wikipedia, there is no reason to reject an agreement within Wikipedia. I have offered a starting point for the intro; all other diverging views can be presented in the rest of the article. Try to be constructive, please.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 02:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I do not think it is a technicality at all. Wikipedia is not a blog for individuals. If there is really no agreement outside Wikipedia, which I disagree with when it at least comes to the most basic description we need in the opening, then we need to present the main opposing ideas outside Wikipedia. If that is very complicated then this will need to be done in detailed sections, not the opening. Furthermore there is no agreement between us here in Wikipedia, there is just one person, you, who is backing your approach.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Dear Andrew,

In a sense it is technicality since we cannot really copy what other people say (copyrights issues). We have to articulate something on our own.

I also think that there is an agreement outside Wikipedia. The problem is, as I see it, that this agreement very few are willing to articulate publicly in a short form. The problem might be in a fear that they might be attacked on various grounds by those that do not read contemporary books on consciousness. (It is much harder to attack if you do not know what or whom you are attacking.) I read few books on consciousness and I tried to articulate the intro along lines they offered. One of them I highly recommend: Tor Nørretranders’ “The User Illusion” (subtitle: “Cutting Consciousness Down to Size”), English translation published by Viking Penguin 1998 in USA (my copy). Although a little outdated when first published, the book was very well received. It also provides a wealth of data, citations etc. In essence, all I did was to round up the picture with the latest findings and try to express all of it in a short intro. I also added what seems the only remaining point of contention in contemporary thought on consciousness - the hard problem of consciousness.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 08:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

No, we REALLY CAN copy what other people say, and there is no copyright issue concerning quoting people or paraphrasing them in Wikipedia. I think everyone is going to continue to insist that you work according to Wikipedia norms, so please stop trying to find a justification for putting original work in this article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Dear Andrew,

I’m not pushing my intro. I’m pushing for a better intro, whoever can propose one. I’m calling for constructive comments and alternative intros. What you and Looie496 are suggesting is rather lacking.

However, since others are silent, I’ll stop pushing for a better intro. I’ll only cite a rhetorical question from the latest issue of Seed magazine: “Does the radical egalitarianism of the wiki undermine traditional notions of scientific authority and consensus?” The article sheds an interesting light at our discussion.

Also. You and Looie496 convinced me that my proposed intro is original. It is therefore protected by copyright act. I intend to work a bit more on it for my next book.

Kind regards, Damir Ibrisimovic (talk) 00:30, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Damir Ibrisimovic: I think the other editors have given you very good advice. The current lead is better that what you have proposed for the reasons the other editors have given. If there are imporatant views or research you feel are not presented in the article then you could present them in the body of the article, providing you cite sources and present a balanced view. If an article is on a controversial topic, then the point of an encylopedia would be to provide an account of the opposing views, not advocate a selection of them. If you want to promote certain views then good for you, but you should be writing pamphlets not encylopedia entries.--Philogo (talk) 01:06, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Sleep?

I find these two bits contradictory:

• Loss of consciousness also occurs in other conditions, such as general (tonic-clonic) epileptic seizures, in general anaesthesia, maybe even in deep (slow-wave) sleep.

• Sleeping drugs (such as Midazolam = Dormicum) can bring the brain from the awake condition (conscious) to the sleep (unconscious).

Is sleep (or certain stages of it) lack of consciousness, or not? As strictly a lay-person, I feel that we are not conscious when we sleep - but I see that this is complicated! - Hordaland (talk) 17:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

There is no universally accepted definition of consciousness, but most writers consider slow-wave sleep to lack it, but REM sleep to have it. Neurologists have a set of more precise criteria for assessing level of consciousness on the basis of responses to various stimuli, and by those criteria, sleep is roughly equivalent to a vegetative state. Even among neurologists there is a lot of dissension about the right way to handle this, though. Looie496 (talk) 18:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Fascinating stuff. Narcoleptics in a cataplexy attack are fully conscious; sleepwalkers apparently are not; scientists will never run out of things to study. - Hordaland (talk) 06:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Comprehensiveness

I agree with the editors above that the new lead proposed by Damir Ibrisimovic fails to describe all the ways in which the term "consciousness" is used. This article must try to describe all of the most common uses of the term. This includes the "ordinary speech" definition (given in the current lead) and the most popular definitions used by philosophy or neuroscience (which are almost captured by the lead). I would like to point out that the term is also important to new age philosophy and eastern philosophy, as well as other theological sources. In the interest of WP:comprehensiveness, all of these uses should be described in this article and summarized in the lead. (See the article Sentience, which has the same problem and has made more of an effort to solve it directly.) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 11:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

That's easy to agree with in principle. Can you be more concrete? -- Or, even better, add the missing material to the article? Looie496 (talk) 16:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah well, I guess that's the problem. It's far easier to add original research than to actually crack a few dozen books and put together a real summary of the subject. I certainly don't have the time this spring. Wish I did. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 23:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Merkwelt

I have added discussion of merkwelt at the end, a concept explained in that section. I have included the sources for it under the miscellaneous websites, but don't know how to reference in text. If someone could add some in-text references to it, that would be great. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danrules2 (talk • contribs) 10:16, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

• Note This was redirected from Merkwelt. If anyone changes the section please be aware of the redirect. --Pontificalibus (talk) 12:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

It seems appropriate to include some discussion of this concept, but the new section needs work. First, it would be better to have no picture at all than to have a picture whose labels are in German. Second, there are far too many references. For this amount of material, there shouldn't be more than two sources, and they should be journal articles or book chapters rather than web sites. Which two sources would be the best? Looie496 (talk) 16:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

The psychology text can be used as a book reference, I only reference the GoogleBooks it comes from as I couldn't find the publishing details::: —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danrules2 (talk • contribs) 13:20, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

A possible theory to mention(after all none of the other theories are different unless you count number of adherents)

Basically I would say that the current explorations of what the consciousness is have been to narrow minded. science seeks to explain it in terms of the third dimension, but one cannot possibly presume to understand the consciousness in terms of a simply complicated 3d structure, and there are also the one who realize this and go on to say that it exists within some spirit realm, which is equally absurd. In the same way that passage of time represents the fourth dimension, I believe that conscious phenomena represent some dimension higher than 4, one that thus far has not been visualized in any other form than in formulae on the sheets of paper of physicists. One might then go on to argue that, if that is the case, and all objects exist in all dimensions, why don't all objects have a consciousness. And to this I say that they do, only, not the same as us. You see, we in our brains have a vast, complicated, but ultimately structured, network of thought, memory, vision and all the senses that other objects simply do not. If you imagine the fifth dimension to be paparazzi and our chemically quantifiable sensations to be celebrities, you can begin to grasp what I mean. For example if a paparazzo was trying to report on a love triangle between celebrities, it would require for the celebrities to speak, a) a language it understands, and b)the same language as each other. In the brain/consciousness sense of this analogy this means that all of the brain signals must be mutually relevant, as they are, and that (at least for our experience of the consciousness)they must take the form that they take in our brain. So what I'm saying is that how we define consciousness, as a receptacle for every thought, feeling and sensation in the brain, does not apply to other objects, as they don't have any of those things for which to be received, nor do they have any nerves, they are merely bombarded with near infinite transitions of energy and matter states without any way of handling it. I also have a theory that the EM field surrounding the brain is the place where the consciousness occurs,(in whatever dimension)- this is because it fulfills the idea that for consistent and complex dimensional phenomena such as the consciousness to occur it requires both a single definable object and an the inherit complexity required by consciousness to be in that object, something which the brain itself doesn't fulfill. The reason for my statement that a single object is required is because I regard all conscious experience to be one event, and as you presumably know all events occur in a a different manner to different objects, therefore if the host of consciousness was not a single object it would not be coherent, and this is why, I think Artificial Intelligence, no matter how lifelike, will ever achieve even the consciousness of a spider (unless of course we go out of our way to have the calculations performed by AI equally reflected into an EM field).

I know this is only my theory, not significant when weighed against the heavyweights of the philosophy world, but I think it makes more sense than any alternative, and is just as worthy of a mention in the article as any other theory, despite its lack of following compared to them. People read encyclopedias to find out hard information, and if they can't get that, why put a filter on the speculative content in place in the article they are reading, because any one piece of speculation is just as likely to provide enlightenment as another, surely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Omg Pop (talk • contribs) 16:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Please see WP:OR, WP:RS, and WP:V. Your own theory does not belong here. Edhubbard (talk) 17:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, we must, to some degree, "count the number adherents" (as well as the number of critics). The more popular an idea is, the more notable it is. Wikipedia tries to cover the most notable ideas first, and has to ignore many millions of non-notable ideas. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 23:01, 28 June 2009 (UTC)