I said 'other' - different facets of a unified whole. I can imagine a paramedic saying that a patient is 'conscious and aware of his surroundings'. Or he might be 'conscious but in such a state of intoxication as to be not aware of his surroundings'. You can be conscious and unaware of something - a storm on the horizon, a fire that's started in the attic. You can be conscious of something but not be aware of what it means - 'from the corner of her eye, she saw a shape moving, unaware that it was a leopard.' (Note etymology of 'beware' i.e. 'be aware!')
I can't really imagine being aware but *not* being conscious, although I suppose awareness persists during sleep, in that a loud sound or a touch will wake you, even if you're not consciously aware when you're asleep. In that sense, 'awareness' is more like a state of the autonomic nervous system, whereas 'conscious' suggests the engagement of discriminative judgement.
I have a feeling that these terms are differentiated it cognitive science, although I would have to look it up to be sure.
In terms of technical jargon regarding the cognitive neurosciences there is a difference. In fact, what is coined as 'consciousness' and 'conscious' varies depending on the context too.
I said 'other' - different facets of a unified whole. I can imagine a paramedic saying that a patient is 'conscious and aware of his surroundings'. Or he might be 'conscious but in such a state of intoxication as to be not aware of his surroundings'.
I think you're using "consciousness" in a physiological sense, similar to being "alive."
I see it more as someone can be generally awake, aware, conscious -- but yet unconscious of many things - l ke the fire in the attic that you mention, or the goings-on in some Chinese market, or the cellular processes in the pancreas.
I guess I still don't see where the differentiation comes from. What exactly is the difference between consciousness and awareness in the first place? I think it is a unified whole, but both words refers to the same whole rather than representing, say, different sides of a triangle or coin. That is, I see consciousness as being conscious of some particular being or group of beings, but also consciousness of being in general. Ditto for awareness. So to say "I am not aware of that," is the same as saying "I'm not conscious of that," even though the former is considered the appropriate word.
I think "raising consciousness" is important, for example -- for individuals and groups. At the same time, we shouldn't fool ourselves into believing that this will solve all of our problems, and try to remember that the vast majority of our activity and our world is not only unconscious, but unknowable for us --in a practical sense. (Some might argue we can theoretically understand everything.)
In meditation, for example, you can use breathing as a technique to increase your awareness of your sensations, your body, your feelings, your thoughts, and your being. I consider this a good thing, especially as a counterbalance to our busy, overstimulated, overworked environment. Psychotherapy, too, can help one increase their awareness of themselves, their family, their world -- simply through talking. I think even philosophy can be healing or "therapeutic" in certain ways -- Brian McGee (I believe) referred to this as "Bibliotherapy."
All well and good. But it's not magic, not supernatural, not really even mystical. Raising awareness can be a learned skill, like anything else -- like speaking and reading and cooking and archery. It's an exercise worth practicing, nothing more. But no matter how much I believe in any of these helpful activities, life is largely absence, and we can only scratch the surface of it. We're human, finite beings at the end of the day.
In terms of technical jargon regarding the cognitive neurosciences there is a difference. In fact, what is coined as 'consciousness' and 'conscious' varies depending on the context too.
I didn't know/wasn't aware/wasn't conscious of that. How are they technically defined?
Roughly interchangeable, although it's not hard to imagine times when people want to make distinctions and to specify usage. Just have to pay attention to the context and hope people, when stipulating meaning, are clear about it.
Reply to Xtrix A lot of it is context dependent. ‘Conscious’ can simply mean brain activity and when it comes to talking about conscious states there is a blurry line of vegetative states that are sometimes called ‘conscious’ and sometimes called ‘non-conscious’.
Often when someone says ‘conscious’ they are referring to states of conscious awareness, but if you are in a deep dream state you possess ‘consciousness’ still. And contradictorily being asleep/knocked-out is not often referred to as a ‘conscious state’.
This is not exactly very surprising as the neurosciences are hard sciences, and ‘consciousness’ is a phenomenon that is tricky to articulate in terms of brain function and human life. It is further confused by psychological terminology wedding up with hard sciences in this area.
Reply to Xtrix I consider ‘awareness’ to be a more general term, with ‘consciousness’ referring to a more complex level of awareness. I make this terminological distinction mainly because my philosophical discussions occasionally enter into panpsychism territory.
I find there is a qualitative distinction between ‘unconscious’ (potential consciousness with temporally-reduced awareness) and ‘non-conscious’ (insufficient awareness complexity (potential) for consciousness).
Consciousness, while being a potential structure, is measured by its temporal manifestations, such as brain activity, responsiveness, etc. ‘Conscious state’ refers to these manifestations, temporarily defined.
I consider ‘awareness’ to be a more general term, with ‘consciousness’ referring to a more complex level of awareness.
Me too. To be aware of the possibility of a thing, then to be aware of the thing, proves the thing. To be conscious of the possibility of a thing, then to be conscious of the thing, validates the possibility but does not necessarily prove the thing.
I reserve awareness in reference to sensibility, but consciousness in reference to understanding. To be aware is to sense; to be conscious is to think.
I reserve awareness in reference to sensibility, but consciousness in reference to understanding. To be aware is to sense; to be conscious is to think.
What purpose is being aware if not to think (to process the sensory information for some purpose)? It seems that both awareness and thinking are integral parts of consciousness.
It seems that both awareness and thinking are integral parts of consciousness.
As I said: an unabashed, unapologetic dualist’s personal preference regarding an organized cognitive system. I can think a thing without its being present, but I am immediately aware of a thing upon its being present. Being conscious of thoughts is not the same as being aware of objects, hence being aware of thoughts says nothing more than being conscious of them.
Besides....if it doesn’t really make any sense to say I am aware of my consciousness, or conscious of my awareness, then there is sufficient reason to distinguish the roots and derivatives of one from the roots and derivatives of the other.
Being conscious of thoughts is not the same as being aware of objects, hence being aware of thoughts says nothing more than being conscious of them.
You seem to be confusing imagining with thinking. Imagining is a type of thinking. Interpreting sensory data is also a type of thinking which is the type I was referring to when making my point.
I is strange that you talk of thoughts and awareness as if they are objects (nouns). Are you aware that you are aware of objects? You must be aware of the thing you are talking about (awareness or objects) or else what would you be talking about?
If you know that objects are made of atoms but you never observe atoms are you aware of atoms? What about being aware of another person's thoughts by means of their behaviors? If we can be aware of objects by how light reflects off them and how they vibrate air molecules that we hear, then why not atoms and thoughts?
Different things. You can be aware of conscious experiences. This awareness is not a conscious experience. Awareness is conscious, but consciousness is conscious being. You can be aware of a conscious being without the awareness being a conscious being.
So I can be aware of red. That awareness is not an experience but an observation of. The observation of red has no color. The consciousness of red is red.
I is strange that you talk of thoughts and awareness as if they are objects (nouns).
And it is a dialectic non-starter to fail to grasp that talking about a thing is the only way to objectively represent it. Of course I talk about thinking in terms of nouns. How else would I?
Aware means conscious. Consciousness is conscious being. It's a small but important difference. Your view of the chair is being conscious of the chair. You are aware of that consciousness. You have created a distance to that consciousness by being aware of it.
Consciousness is conscious being” makes little sense to me. I can’t make heads or tails of it.
Yeah it's confusing. In German "Bewustsein" ,(litterally
"aware being")cmeaning consciousness or awareness, and "Bewust", aware, are two different things. "Are you aware of that" has a dìfferent meaning than consciousness. "I'm aware of the situation" is active, consciousness is passive. I have consciousness, I am aware. So conscious being is passive while being aware is active.
And it is a dialectic non-starter to fail to grasp that talking about a thing is the only way to objectively represent it. Of course I talk about thinking in terms of nouns. How else would I?
As for the rest....(Sigh)
Sigh. Thoughts are nouns. Thinking is a verb. I fail to see how scribbles that are experienced just like everything else are objective representations of things that are experienced.
If I can't understand your position because you are being inconsistent and intellectually lazy then your objective representations probably aren't objective at all but a result of the bubble you've chose to live in.
Different things. You can be aware of conscious experiences. This awareness is not a conscious experience. Awareness is conscious, but consciousness is conscious being. You can be aware of a conscious being without the awareness being a conscious being.
So I can be aware of red. That awareness is not an experience but an observation of. The observation of red has no color. The consciousness of red is red.
Thanks for moving the conversation past what Reply to Mww is intellectually capable of.
Red only exists in your head. Color does not exist in the world. So by being aware of red, are you not being aware of the contents of consciousness? How does being aware of red allow you to be aware of apples that are not red, but ripe? Causation - the relationship between causes and their effects is information.
So you are aware (informed) of the ripeness of the apple by being conscious of a red apple. You can be aware (informed) of other people's thoughts by being conscious of their behaviors (which includes making verbal utterances and drawing scribbles).
I reserve awareness in reference to sensibility, but consciousness in reference to understanding. To be aware is to sense; to be conscious is to think.
That’s not really how I see it, although I understand your distinction as a reduction IF we only consider living systems to be aware. I consider consciousness and sensibility to be different complexities of awareness. To be aware is to be informed by relation to ‘other’; to be conscious is to be aware at the level of potential; to sense is to be aware at the level of actuality. To think is one method of processing information from this level of potential. It isn’t the only one.
I don’t see why that move is justified. You can do it, of course, but it doesn’t seem to get us anywhere.
Where are you trying to get to? Awareness as information in relation to ‘other’ gives us a basic structure of information we can apply to all levels of relation, from virtual particles to conceptual systems (and possibly beyond), without entertaining the idea that rock are conscious.
To be aware is to be informed by relation to ‘other’; to be conscious is to be aware at the level of potential; to sense is to be aware at the level of actuality.
This works for objects of perception, for real objects in the world which affect our sensibility. We know this from the fact we sometimes are affected by objects but don’t know what that object is. So....we are aware of an actual sensation but also conscious that what we are aware of, could be anything, so has a level of potentiality.
But that doesn't account for conditions of consciousness without awareness, of which there are two. One is being conscious of that for which there will never be an awareness at the level of actuality, or that of which we will be potentially aware at the level of actuality iff we ourselves cause it to become an object of perception. The former is, of course, our feelings, and the latter is things like numbers, laws, possibilities, and so on.
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This works for objects of perception, for real objects in the world which affect our sensibility. We know this from the fact we sometimes are affected by objects but don’t know what that object is. So....we are aware of an actual sensation but also conscious that what we are aware of, could be anything, so has a level of potentiality.
To vague to be useful. Give an example of being affected by an object but don't know what that object is.
I can think of blind-sight patients but the sensation they are aware of is their own reaction to something that they are neither aware of nor conscious of. They are never aware of the object, only their reaction to it, which goes back to my description of causation - that they conclude by the process of thinking that their reaction indicates that something is there, but they don't know what it could be, which is different than something appearing in consciousness in which you have no prior experience of, which comes back to the type of thinking that is interpreting sensations that are in consciousness. You can only think in sensory forms, so if there is no form in consciousness (as in blind-sight patients) then there is nothing to think about. The only form (sensation) that appears is their own reaction to something that isn't there. Tree rings are the effect. How the tree grows throughout the year and how many years it has being growing is the cause. Information is the relationship between the two.
To be aware is to be informed by relation to ‘other’; to be conscious is to be aware at the level of potential; to sense is to be aware at the level of actuality.
— Possibility
This works for objects of perception, for real objects in the world which affect our sensibility. We know this from the fact we sometimes are affected by objects but don’t know what that object is. So....we are aware of an actual sensation but also conscious that what we are aware of, could be anything, so has a level of potentiality.
It COULD be anything - it CAN be narrowed down - this is the difference between possibility and potentiality. It’s where conceptual structures - predictions based on the relation of actual sensation/affect to past experience, knowledge, language, values, etc - come into play.
But that doesn't account for conditions of consciousness without awareness, of which there are two. One is being conscious of that for which there will never be an awareness at the level of actuality, or that of which we will be potentially aware at the level of actuality iff we ourselves cause it to become an object of perception. The former is, of course, our feelings, and the latter is things like numbers, laws, possibilities, and so on.
This is where a narrow understanding of potential as quantitative probability trips us up. Potential also refers to value or significance. It has a qualitative aspect that is too often dismissed as improbable or even irrational. But our feelings do inform us at a level of qualitative potential - we are aware of something that alters the potentiality of affect without necessarily conforming to conceptual structure.
As for numbers, laws, etc - these are conceptual structures that we develop an understanding of through a potential correlation of quantitative knowledge with qualitative experience. We CAN be aware of them at the level of actuality by paying particular attention in our experiences - it’s just more efficient with prior knowledge of logical structure.
So....we are aware of an actual sensation but also conscious that what we are aware of, could be anything, so has a level of potentiality.
— Mww
It COULD be anything - it CAN be narrowed down (...). It’s where conceptual structures - predictions based on the relation of actual sensation/affect to past experience, knowledge, language, values, etc - come into play.
As for numbers, laws, etc - these are conceptual structures that we develop an understanding of through a potential correlation of quantitative knowledge with qualitative experience.
it’s just more efficient with prior knowledge of logical structure.
What if conceptual structure is itself logical? If it is, then the efficiency we have is all we’re ever going to have, and there wouldn’t be any prior knowledge that isn’t already structured logically.
And if conceptual structure isn’t logical, indicating there is more efficiency to be had, what does the logical structure look like, and how would we know it as such?
Reply to Xtrix
You have betrayed yourself! :smile:
You said "As far as I'm aware". Can you equally say, "As far as I'm conscious"? Most probably not. Of course, "as far as I'm aware" is an expression, similar to "as far as I know", and does not reflect what awareness actually is, i.e., what it commonly means, which is, a state and the ability to perceive the existence of something. In that sense, it is synonymous with consciousness. They are almost the same thing and can be used interchangeably. Which is also what you believe.
But this only as concepts, as nouns. Their verb form differs. The verb "aware" has more meanings and applications than the verb "conscious", as I already indicated at start. Other examples: you can say "I'm aware of the fact", "I am aware of what is happening at this moment", etc. You cannot replace the word "aware" with "conscious" in these sentences. It will be incorrect. The verb "conscious" is much more strict and limited in scope. It can be only used in the sense that "I am in a state and I able to perceive things", "I am awake and I can respond to my environment", etc. But again, this is not what "Consciousness" as a concept means, a term with a much wider significance. One that is quite controversial and most probably will always be! :smile:
***
Note: I said "verb" referring to "aware" and "conscious". It's a mistake. They are adjectives. I had in mind the verb forms/expressions "I am aware" and "I am conscious", as my examples show.
If you can add any set of random four-digit numbers together in your head, you are thinking without sensing.
I'm seeing the numbers, in my case. Regardless, even if I were blind I don't see how arithmetic is relevant here, unless we want to define "thinking" as numeric operations.
In some Buddhist traditions, mind itself is a sense. And presumably, you have to be conscious to add numbers.
I don't see any reason to take for granted traditional ideas of thought, mind, sense, or consciousness.
A clearer understanding of consciousness and awareness -- basically by acknowledging that there's no good reason to see them as anything but synonymous.
Awareness as information in relation to ‘other’ gives us a basic structure of information we can apply to all levels of relation, from virtual particles to conceptual systems (and possibly beyond), without entertaining the idea that rock are conscious.
Awareness = information in relation to "other" is meaningless to me. If you want to make that clearer, I'm happy to learn.
Again, there's no technical notion for either word. What I'm asking about is usage. It appears most people (so far) do not use them interchangeably. Fair enough. But I'm not seeing good reasons for doing so thus far.
Let me be lazy and quote Wikipedia:
Awareness is the state of being conscious of something. More specifically, it is the ability to directly know and perceive, to feel, or to be cognizant of events. Another definition describes it as a state wherein a subject is aware of some information when that information is directly available to bring to bear in the direction of a wide range of behavioral actions.[1] The concept is often synonymous to consciousness and is also understood as being consciousness itself.[2]
I think this is pretty fair.
It's ultimately a minor point, I suppose. I see most of our lives as being lived in a fairly automatic, unconscious/unaware state anyway.
I don't see any reason to take for granted traditional ideas of thought, mind, sense, or consciousness.
I don’t either. Take for granted, that is.
But ya gotta admit.....seeing the numbers in your head, or not seeing a reason, is just the same form of conceptual misappropriation as awareness vs consciousness.
A clearer understanding of consciousness and awareness -- basically by acknowledging that there's no good reason to see them as anything but synonymous.
So long as you assume consciousness, sure. But if you need to distinguish between conscious and non-conscious, then you need a more accurate understanding of awareness. There’s a reason why we have two words.
Awareness as information in relation to ‘other’ gives us a basic structure of information we can apply to all levels of relation, from virtual particles to conceptual systems (and possibly beyond), without entertaining the idea that rock are conscious.
— Possibility
Awareness = information in relation to "other" is meaningless to me. If you want to make that clearer, I'm happy to learn.
Carlo Rovelli explains it better than I could, in his book Reality is Not What it Seems. Information (as Shannon defines it) “measures the ability of one physical system to communicate with another physical system.”
“Democritus says that when atoms combine what counts is their form, their arrangement in the structure, as well as the way in which they combine. He gives an example of the letters of the alphabet.”
“If atoms are also an alphabet, who is able to read the phrases written with this alphabet? The answer is subtle: the way in which the atoms arrange themselves is correlated with the way other atoms arrange themselves. Therefore, a set of atoms can have information, in the technical, precise sense... about another set of atoms.
“This, in the physical world, happens continuously and throughout, in every moment and in every place: the light which arrives at our eye carries information about the objects which it has played across; the colour of the sea has information on the colour of the sky above it; a cell has information about the virus attacking it...”
Reply to Xtrix
But I have supported your view! :smile:
More particularily, I said "In that sense, it is synonymous with consciousness" and also "Which is also what you believe."
(It's quite unusual to see someone "protesting" (re: "Again, ...") and explaining to me about things that I have already agreed with! :grin:)
What if conceptual structure is itself logical? If it is, then the efficiency we have is all we’re ever going to have, and there wouldn’t be any prior knowledge that isn’t already structured logically.
Conceptual structure is never purely logical, despite how we may perceive it. Either it has a qualitative aspect that determines its significance and applicability, or it lacks the logical structure that renders it reliably applicable.
And if conceptual structure isn’t logical, indicating there is more efficiency to be had, what does the logical structure look like, and how would we know it as such?
Conceptual structure isn’t either logical or qualitative, it’s both - that’s how it improves the accuracy of our interactions. It’s predictive. We develop conceptual structure by experiencing which predictions work for us and which ones don’t, and how they relate to each other according to both significance and probability. So trial and error, basically. Being aware of prediction error (pain, humility, lack) and learning from it.
A system predicated on prediction and trial and error cannot be as efficient as one predicated on pure logic, given the excruciatingly simple premise that reason doesn’t like a guessing game, or that which can be reduced to it.
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I have no idea how to connect pain with prediction error.
Prediction: let’s try this. Error: Crap!! I’m now aware that didn’t work!! I felt pain. To feel less pain, try this...try this...try this....where does it end? It ends in no pain, of course. Shall we add sheer luck to prediction and trial and error?
OK...so.....why didn’t it work? Was it because of its logical structure, or because of its qualitative aspect? Or even on the other hand... did it work because of one or the other? If both...equally, or more of one than the other? And if it doesn’t matter, why were they there in the first place?
How was logical structure/qualitative aspect determined, anyway? Or were they given, and in which case, by what?
In subsequent circumstance, under sufficiently congruent conditions, to fall back on prediction or trial and error is absurd, insofar as experience makes them obsolete. So why employ them at all, if they only work once? Sometimes we need something that which works infallibly, all the time.
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Prediction and trial and error have their place, just as logical structure and qualitative aspect has theirs. Just not the same place.
A system predicated on prediction and trial and error cannot be as efficient as one predicated on pure logic, given the excruciatingly simple premise that reason doesn’t like a guessing game, or that which can be reduced to it.
Reason doesn’t always have a choice in the matter. Take QM, for instance. Its logical equations were originally determined by...prediction and trial and error.
I have no idea how to connect pain with prediction error.
Prediction: let’s try this. Error: Crap!! I’m now aware that didn’t work!! I felt pain. To feel less pain, try this...try this...try this....where does it end? It ends in no pain, of course. Shall we add sheer luck to prediction and trial and error?
Pain is a basic biological signal that our predicted distribution of effort and attention (affect) in a particular situation is currently insufficient in some area. The aim is not necessarily to feel less pain or no pain, but to use that qualitative data to adjust how reasoning logically and qualitatively structures affect - ie. when to push through the pain, where to redirect attention, increase/redirect energy intake or cease action. It’s not a matter of ‘falling back’ on trial and error, but collaborating with non-reasoning aspects of the system to act on reasoning.
There’s a reason why we have two words.
— Possibility
What’s the reason?
Because there’s more to life than consciousness. Understanding awareness in non-conscious entities is how we improve the accuracy of relationships and interaction with our environment and the universe.
A system predicated on prediction and trial and error....
— Mww
Reason doesn’t always have a choice in the matter.
Irrelevant, insofar as ‘predicated on’ as a general methodological necessity is not the same as ‘recognition of’ a particular exception. In the case of QM, reason merely conveys that for which a certainty is impossible, under the strictest of conditions reason itself provided, in accordance with observation. Humans, as such, don’t function in the quantum domain, and I’m a big fan of staying in my own lane, so.....
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Pain is a basic biological signal that our predicted distribution of effort and attention (affect) in a particular situation is currently insufficient in some area.
Yeah....no. Here’s me, walkin’ down a public road, mindin’ my own damn business, hummin’ Jimmy’s solo bridge in Stairway to Heaven.......punk-assed banga jumps out of the bushes, whacks me in the noggin, relieves me of my Rolex. So the pain of embarrassment I felt in the loss of my watch is the signal that I paid too little attention to making it and my wrist inseparable? Or maybe the pain of the lump on my head signals that I made too little effort in formulating an escape from a situation for which there was no antecedent reason, insofar as the situation itself was a complete surprise?
This is what I meant by guessing games. If such-and-such is true in one case, but not in another, there must be something logically underpinning them both.
Pain, or pleasure, is a basic signaling parameter. Period. All they in their various degrees do, is inform of a relative exception to a given rule, and it’s up to reason to figure out the particulars related to it. Anything else is mere anthropology or (gaspsputterchoke) empirical or clinical psychology. Of which the proper speculative metaphysician treats as the proverbial red-headed stepchild, while the “vulgar class”, as Berkeley would say, or the “vulgar understanding” as Hume would call it, think them as some major importance in the governance of the fundamental human condition.
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Understanding awareness in non-conscious entities is how we improve the accuracy of relationships and interaction with our environment and the universe.
Surely you didn’t mean to say I can improve my relationship with a swimming pool if I only understand my diving into it doesn’t cause it any pain. Or, on the other hand, my relationship with the pool improves if I understand it appreciates me diving into it because that is one way the pool was meant to be treated. Your assertion can certainly be interpreted like that.
Point/counterpoint. All in good dialectical exercise.....
A system predicated on prediction and trial and error....
— Mww
Reason doesn’t always have a choice in the matter.
— Possibility
Irrelevant, insofar as ‘predicated on’ as a general methodological necessity is not the same as ‘recognition of’ a particular exception. In the case of QM, reason merely conveys that for which a certainty is impossible, under the strictest of conditions reason itself provided, in accordance with observation. Humans, as such, don’t function in the quantum domain, and I’m a big fan of staying in my own lane, so.....
I had already said that prediction and trial and error were nowhere near as efficient as reason, so I’m not sure why you still feel the need to push this point. Besides, our confidence in reason is predicated on prediction and trial and error.
Pain is a basic biological signal that our predicted distribution of effort and attention (affect) in a particular situation is currently insufficient in some area.
— Possibility
Yeah....no. Here’s me, walkin’ down a public road, mindin’ my own damn business, hummin’ Jimmy’s solo bridge in Stairway to Heaven.......punk-assed banga jumps out of the bushes, whacks me in the noggin, relieves me of my Rolex. So the pain of embarrassment I felt in the loss of my watch is the signal that I paid too little attention to making it and my wrist inseparable? Or maybe the pain of the lump on my head signals that I made too little effort in formulating an escape from a situation for which there was no antecedent reason, insofar as the situation itself was a complete surprise?
This is what I meant by guessing games. If such-and-such is true in one case, but not in another, there must be something logically underpinning them both.
Pain, or pleasure, is a basic signaling parameter. Period. All they in their various degrees do, is inform of a relative exception to a given rule, and it’s up to reason to figure out the particulars related to it. Anything else is mere anthropology or (gaspsputterchoke) empirical or clinical psychology. Of which the proper speculative metaphysician treats as the proverbial red-headed stepchild, while the “vulgar class”, as Berkeley would say, or the “vulgar understanding” as Hume would call it, think them as some major importance in the governance of the fundamental human condition.
Is that really how you would process this event? A surprise situation is one that was not predicted - this is prediction error, and all the pain you feel is simply because you were unaware of any antecedent reason for - or potential structure to - the situation, which might have enabled you to predict it, and either prevent or minimise the resulting pain. It’s not about attributing blame or dismissing it as an exception, but about being aware of information that might have drawn your attention more readily to an increased potential for the situation, as well as the options available and your own capacity to ameliorate the overall potential surrounding the situation. Then if by chance it looks like it could happen again, it won’t be so much of a surprise. Of course you could dismiss it as the punk ass banga’s fault, or a “relative exception to a given rule” (people just don’t jump out of bushes to steal Rolex watches), and learn nothing from the experience. Clearly people do - I’m not saying make a big deal of it, but ignoring or beating the red-headed stepchild it is not going to make them cease to exist.
Understanding awareness in non-conscious entities is how we improve the accuracy of relationships and interaction with our environment and the universe.
— Possibility
Surely you didn’t mean to say I can improve my relationship with a swimming pool if I only understand my diving into it doesn’t cause it any pain. Or, on the other hand, my relationship with the pool improves if I understand it appreciates me diving into it because that is one way the pool was meant to be treated. Your assertion can certainly be interpreted like that.
No, of course not. I’m talking about awareness and NOT consciousness, so all your talk about pain or appreciation is just a strawman. Read my other posts. What I’m referring to is more along the lines of recognising that the water in the pool will enable bacteria to develop in it over time (which may be harmful to me if I ingest or inhale it) unless I add chlorine at a level that is effective, but not so much that my eyes sting or my hair turns green.
There’s a reason why we have two words.
— Possibility
What’s the reason?
For what reason does a language have synonyms?
Can you be conscious without being aware of anything? Can you be aware of anything without being conscious as well? Can you report anything that you are not either aware or conscious of?
Some will use examples of dreaming and hallucinating to distinguish between being aware and being conscious, but it seems that the distinction isn't between being aware or being conscious, rather the distinction lies in the interpretation of what it is that you are both conscious and aware of. Interpreting a hallucination to be an awareness/conscious of something outside of your head vs inside your head. In hallucinating you are aware/conscious of something but not sure if what you are aware/conscious of is located outside of your head or inside.
Depends. Sometimes interchangeably, sometimes not.
Conciousness is often defined more basically. Something is concious if it is "something for which there is something to be like." That is, there is a first person perspective corresponding to it.
Awarenesses can better denote meta cognition. When you zone out while driving, experiments suggest that sights and sounds still pass through conciousness, but they aren't kept in memory very long, and little executive function is dedicated to them. Metacognition is being aware of your own thoughts and perceptions, and awareness might be better term here. Cats might be concious of the noise of a mouse, but are they aware of the fact that they, a subjective viewpoint, are experiencing hearing a mouse?
However, in normal language this definition is not clear cut. It's arbitrary.
Comments (46)
Would it mean the same thing to you if you replaced "aware" with "conscious"?
:lol:
Touché.
I suppose not in that context.
I can't really imagine being aware but *not* being conscious, although I suppose awareness persists during sleep, in that a loud sound or a touch will wake you, even if you're not consciously aware when you're asleep. In that sense, 'awareness' is more like a state of the autonomic nervous system, whereas 'conscious' suggests the engagement of discriminative judgement.
I have a feeling that these terms are differentiated it cognitive science, although I would have to look it up to be sure.
That was easy :smile:
I am not a native English speaker but I believe both words are used interchangeably in popular language.
However, I think their definitions are different. Awareness relates to knowledge, consciousness to a mental state, conscious/unconscious.
I think you're using "consciousness" in a physiological sense, similar to being "alive."
I see it more as someone can be generally awake, aware, conscious -- but yet unconscious of many things - l ke the fire in the attic that you mention, or the goings-on in some Chinese market, or the cellular processes in the pancreas.
I guess I still don't see where the differentiation comes from. What exactly is the difference between consciousness and awareness in the first place? I think it is a unified whole, but both words refers to the same whole rather than representing, say, different sides of a triangle or coin. That is, I see consciousness as being conscious of some particular being or group of beings, but also consciousness of being in general. Ditto for awareness. So to say "I am not aware of that," is the same as saying "I'm not conscious of that," even though the former is considered the appropriate word.
I think "raising consciousness" is important, for example -- for individuals and groups. At the same time, we shouldn't fool ourselves into believing that this will solve all of our problems, and try to remember that the vast majority of our activity and our world is not only unconscious, but unknowable for us --in a practical sense. (Some might argue we can theoretically understand everything.)
In meditation, for example, you can use breathing as a technique to increase your awareness of your sensations, your body, your feelings, your thoughts, and your being. I consider this a good thing, especially as a counterbalance to our busy, overstimulated, overworked environment. Psychotherapy, too, can help one increase their awareness of themselves, their family, their world -- simply through talking. I think even philosophy can be healing or "therapeutic" in certain ways -- Brian McGee (I believe) referred to this as "Bibliotherapy."
All well and good. But it's not magic, not supernatural, not really even mystical. Raising awareness can be a learned skill, like anything else -- like speaking and reading and cooking and archery. It's an exercise worth practicing, nothing more. But no matter how much I believe in any of these helpful activities, life is largely absence, and we can only scratch the surface of it. We're human, finite beings at the end of the day.
Quoting I like sushi
I didn't know/wasn't aware/wasn't conscious of that. How are they technically defined?
Often when someone says ‘conscious’ they are referring to states of conscious awareness, but if you are in a deep dream state you possess ‘consciousness’ still. And contradictorily being asleep/knocked-out is not often referred to as a ‘conscious state’.
This is not exactly very surprising as the neurosciences are hard sciences, and ‘consciousness’ is a phenomenon that is tricky to articulate in terms of brain function and human life. It is further confused by psychological terminology wedding up with hard sciences in this area.
I find there is a qualitative distinction between ‘unconscious’ (potential consciousness with temporally-reduced awareness) and ‘non-conscious’ (insufficient awareness complexity (potential) for consciousness).
Consciousness, while being a potential structure, is measured by its temporal manifestations, such as brain activity, responsiveness, etc. ‘Conscious state’ refers to these manifestations, temporarily defined.
Me too. To be aware of the possibility of a thing, then to be aware of the thing, proves the thing. To be conscious of the possibility of a thing, then to be conscious of the thing, validates the possibility but does not necessarily prove the thing.
I reserve awareness in reference to sensibility, but consciousness in reference to understanding. To be aware is to sense; to be conscious is to think.
What purpose is being aware if not to think (to process the sensory information for some purpose)? It seems that both awareness and thinking are integral parts of consciousness.
As I said: an unabashed, unapologetic dualist’s personal preference regarding an organized cognitive system. I can think a thing without its being present, but I am immediately aware of a thing upon its being present. Being conscious of thoughts is not the same as being aware of objects, hence being aware of thoughts says nothing more than being conscious of them.
Besides....if it doesn’t really make any sense to say I am aware of my consciousness, or conscious of my awareness, then there is sufficient reason to distinguish the roots and derivatives of one from the roots and derivatives of the other.
You seem to be confusing imagining with thinking. Imagining is a type of thinking. Interpreting sensory data is also a type of thinking which is the type I was referring to when making my point.
I is strange that you talk of thoughts and awareness as if they are objects (nouns). Are you aware that you are aware of objects? You must be aware of the thing you are talking about (awareness or objects) or else what would you be talking about?
If you know that objects are made of atoms but you never observe atoms are you aware of atoms? What about being aware of another person's thoughts by means of their behaviors? If we can be aware of objects by how light reflects off them and how they vibrate air molecules that we hear, then why not atoms and thoughts?
So I can be aware of red. That awareness is not an experience but an observation of. The observation of red has no color. The consciousness of red is red.
And it is a dialectic non-starter to fail to grasp that talking about a thing is the only way to objectively represent it. Of course I talk about thinking in terms of nouns. How else would I?
As for the rest....(Sigh)
I don’t see why that move is justified. You can do it, of course, but it doesn’t seem to get us anywhere.
Quoting Mww
Again, I don’t see why consciousness has to be linked with thinking any more than awareness does. You’re sensing either way.
Quoting EugeneW
It isn’t?
Seems unnecessarily confusing. If I’m aware of this chair, I’m also conscious of this chair.
Aware means conscious. Consciousness is conscious being. It's a small but important difference. Your view of the chair is being conscious of the chair. You are aware of that consciousness. You have created a distance to that consciousness by being aware of it.
Awareness/consciousness is a characteristic (or state) of being.
“Consciousness is conscious being” makes little sense to me. I can’t make heads or tails of it.
Yeah it's confusing. In German "Bewustsein" ,(litterally
"aware being")cmeaning consciousness or awareness, and "Bewust", aware, are two different things. "Are you aware of that" has a dìfferent meaning than consciousness. "I'm aware of the situation" is active, consciousness is passive. I have consciousness, I am aware. So conscious being is passive while being aware is active.
If you can add any set of random four-digit numbers together in your head, you are thinking without sensing.
Sigh. Thoughts are nouns. Thinking is a verb. I fail to see how scribbles that are experienced just like everything else are objective representations of things that are experienced.
If I can't understand your position because you are being inconsistent and intellectually lazy then your objective representations probably aren't objective at all but a result of the bubble you've chose to live in.
Thanks for moving the conversation past what is intellectually capable of.
Red only exists in your head. Color does not exist in the world. So by being aware of red, are you not being aware of the contents of consciousness? How does being aware of red allow you to be aware of apples that are not red, but ripe? Causation - the relationship between causes and their effects is information.
So you are aware (informed) of the ripeness of the apple by being conscious of a red apple. You can be aware (informed) of other people's thoughts by being conscious of their behaviors (which includes making verbal utterances and drawing scribbles).
That’s not really how I see it, although I understand your distinction as a reduction IF we only consider living systems to be aware. I consider consciousness and sensibility to be different complexities of awareness. To be aware is to be informed by relation to ‘other’; to be conscious is to be aware at the level of potential; to sense is to be aware at the level of actuality. To think is one method of processing information from this level of potential. It isn’t the only one.
Where are you trying to get to? Awareness as information in relation to ‘other’ gives us a basic structure of information we can apply to all levels of relation, from virtual particles to conceptual systems (and possibly beyond), without entertaining the idea that rock are conscious.
This works for objects of perception, for real objects in the world which affect our sensibility. We know this from the fact we sometimes are affected by objects but don’t know what that object is. So....we are aware of an actual sensation but also conscious that what we are aware of, could be anything, so has a level of potentiality.
But that doesn't account for conditions of consciousness without awareness, of which there are two. One is being conscious of that for which there will never be an awareness at the level of actuality, or that of which we will be potentially aware at the level of actuality iff we ourselves cause it to become an object of perception. The former is, of course, our feelings, and the latter is things like numbers, laws, possibilities, and so on.
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Quoting Possibility
What is another one? That isn’t the least anthropomorphic?
To vague to be useful. Give an example of being affected by an object but don't know what that object is.
I can think of blind-sight patients but the sensation they are aware of is their own reaction to something that they are neither aware of nor conscious of. They are never aware of the object, only their reaction to it, which goes back to my description of causation - that they conclude by the process of thinking that their reaction indicates that something is there, but they don't know what it could be, which is different than something appearing in consciousness in which you have no prior experience of, which comes back to the type of thinking that is interpreting sensations that are in consciousness. You can only think in sensory forms, so if there is no form in consciousness (as in blind-sight patients) then there is nothing to think about. The only form (sensation) that appears is their own reaction to something that isn't there. Tree rings are the effect. How the tree grows throughout the year and how many years it has being growing is the cause. Information is the relationship between the two.
It COULD be anything - it CAN be narrowed down - this is the difference between possibility and potentiality. It’s where conceptual structures - predictions based on the relation of actual sensation/affect to past experience, knowledge, language, values, etc - come into play.
Quoting Mww
This is where a narrow understanding of potential as quantitative probability trips us up. Potential also refers to value or significance. It has a qualitative aspect that is too often dismissed as improbable or even irrational. But our feelings do inform us at a level of qualitative potential - we are aware of something that alters the potentiality of affect without necessarily conforming to conceptual structure.
As for numbers, laws, etc - these are conceptual structures that we develop an understanding of through a potential correlation of quantitative knowledge with qualitative experience. We CAN be aware of them at the level of actuality by paying particular attention in our experiences - it’s just more efficient with prior knowledge of logical structure.
Yes. Close enough.
Quoting Possibility
Again, true enough.
Quoting Possibility
What if conceptual structure is itself logical? If it is, then the efficiency we have is all we’re ever going to have, and there wouldn’t be any prior knowledge that isn’t already structured logically.
And if conceptual structure isn’t logical, indicating there is more efficiency to be had, what does the logical structure look like, and how would we know it as such?
You have betrayed yourself! :smile:
You said "As far as I'm aware". Can you equally say, "As far as I'm conscious"? Most probably not. Of course, "as far as I'm aware" is an expression, similar to "as far as I know", and does not reflect what awareness actually is, i.e., what it commonly means, which is, a state and the ability to perceive the existence of something. In that sense, it is synonymous with consciousness. They are almost the same thing and can be used interchangeably. Which is also what you believe.
But this only as concepts, as nouns. Their verb form differs. The verb "aware" has more meanings and applications than the verb "conscious", as I already indicated at start. Other examples: you can say "I'm aware of the fact", "I am aware of what is happening at this moment", etc. You cannot replace the word "aware" with "conscious" in these sentences. It will be incorrect. The verb "conscious" is much more strict and limited in scope. It can be only used in the sense that "I am in a state and I able to perceive things", "I am awake and I can respond to my environment", etc. But again, this is not what "Consciousness" as a concept means, a term with a much wider significance. One that is quite controversial and most probably will always be! :smile:
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Note: I said "verb" referring to "aware" and "conscious". It's a mistake. They are adjectives. I had in mind the verb forms/expressions "I am aware" and "I am conscious", as my examples show.
I'm seeing the numbers, in my case. Regardless, even if I were blind I don't see how arithmetic is relevant here, unless we want to define "thinking" as numeric operations.
In some Buddhist traditions, mind itself is a sense. And presumably, you have to be conscious to add numbers.
I don't see any reason to take for granted traditional ideas of thought, mind, sense, or consciousness.
A clearer understanding of consciousness and awareness -- basically by acknowledging that there's no good reason to see them as anything but synonymous.
Quoting Possibility
Awareness = information in relation to "other" is meaningless to me. If you want to make that clearer, I'm happy to learn.
Again, there's no technical notion for either word. What I'm asking about is usage. It appears most people (so far) do not use them interchangeably. Fair enough. But I'm not seeing good reasons for doing so thus far.
Let me be lazy and quote Wikipedia:
I think this is pretty fair.
It's ultimately a minor point, I suppose. I see most of our lives as being lived in a fairly automatic, unconscious/unaware state anyway.
I don’t either. Take for granted, that is.
But ya gotta admit.....seeing the numbers in your head, or not seeing a reason, is just the same form of conceptual misappropriation as awareness vs consciousness.
So long as you assume consciousness, sure. But if you need to distinguish between conscious and non-conscious, then you need a more accurate understanding of awareness. There’s a reason why we have two words.
Quoting Xtrix
Carlo Rovelli explains it better than I could, in his book Reality is Not What it Seems. Information (as Shannon defines it) “measures the ability of one physical system to communicate with another physical system.”
“Democritus says that when atoms combine what counts is their form, their arrangement in the structure, as well as the way in which they combine. He gives an example of the letters of the alphabet.”
“If atoms are also an alphabet, who is able to read the phrases written with this alphabet? The answer is subtle: the way in which the atoms arrange themselves is correlated with the way other atoms arrange themselves. Therefore, a set of atoms can have information, in the technical, precise sense... about another set of atoms.
“This, in the physical world, happens continuously and throughout, in every moment and in every place: the light which arrives at our eye carries information about the objects which it has played across; the colour of the sea has information on the colour of the sky above it; a cell has information about the virus attacking it...”
But I have supported your view! :smile:
More particularily, I said "In that sense, it is synonymous with consciousness" and also "Which is also what you believe."
(It's quite unusual to see someone "protesting" (re: "Again, ...") and explaining to me about things that I have already agreed with! :grin:)
Conceptual structure is never purely logical, despite how we may perceive it. Either it has a qualitative aspect that determines its significance and applicability, or it lacks the logical structure that renders it reliably applicable.
Quoting Mww
Conceptual structure isn’t either logical or qualitative, it’s both - that’s how it improves the accuracy of our interactions. It’s predictive. We develop conceptual structure by experiencing which predictions work for us and which ones don’t, and how they relate to each other according to both significance and probability. So trial and error, basically. Being aware of prediction error (pain, humility, lack) and learning from it.
What’s the reason?
This wanders too far afield.
A system predicated on prediction and trial and error cannot be as efficient as one predicated on pure logic, given the excruciatingly simple premise that reason doesn’t like a guessing game, or that which can be reduced to it.
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I have no idea how to connect pain with prediction error.
Prediction: let’s try this. Error: Crap!! I’m now aware that didn’t work!! I felt pain. To feel less pain, try this...try this...try this....where does it end? It ends in no pain, of course. Shall we add sheer luck to prediction and trial and error?
OK...so.....why didn’t it work? Was it because of its logical structure, or because of its qualitative aspect? Or even on the other hand... did it work because of one or the other? If both...equally, or more of one than the other? And if it doesn’t matter, why were they there in the first place?
How was logical structure/qualitative aspect determined, anyway? Or were they given, and in which case, by what?
In subsequent circumstance, under sufficiently congruent conditions, to fall back on prediction or trial and error is absurd, insofar as experience makes them obsolete. So why employ them at all, if they only work once? Sometimes we need something that which works infallibly, all the time.
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Prediction and trial and error have their place, just as logical structure and qualitative aspect has theirs. Just not the same place.
Reason doesn’t always have a choice in the matter. Take QM, for instance. Its logical equations were originally determined by...prediction and trial and error.
Quoting Mww
Pain is a basic biological signal that our predicted distribution of effort and attention (affect) in a particular situation is currently insufficient in some area. The aim is not necessarily to feel less pain or no pain, but to use that qualitative data to adjust how reasoning logically and qualitatively structures affect - ie. when to push through the pain, where to redirect attention, increase/redirect energy intake or cease action. It’s not a matter of ‘falling back’ on trial and error, but collaborating with non-reasoning aspects of the system to act on reasoning.
Quoting Xtrix
Because there’s more to life than consciousness. Understanding awareness in non-conscious entities is how we improve the accuracy of relationships and interaction with our environment and the universe.
Irrelevant, insofar as ‘predicated on’ as a general methodological necessity is not the same as ‘recognition of’ a particular exception. In the case of QM, reason merely conveys that for which a certainty is impossible, under the strictest of conditions reason itself provided, in accordance with observation. Humans, as such, don’t function in the quantum domain, and I’m a big fan of staying in my own lane, so.....
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Quoting Possibility
Yeah....no. Here’s me, walkin’ down a public road, mindin’ my own damn business, hummin’ Jimmy’s solo bridge in Stairway to Heaven.......punk-assed banga jumps out of the bushes, whacks me in the noggin, relieves me of my Rolex. So the pain of embarrassment I felt in the loss of my watch is the signal that I paid too little attention to making it and my wrist inseparable? Or maybe the pain of the lump on my head signals that I made too little effort in formulating an escape from a situation for which there was no antecedent reason, insofar as the situation itself was a complete surprise?
This is what I meant by guessing games. If such-and-such is true in one case, but not in another, there must be something logically underpinning them both.
Pain, or pleasure, is a basic signaling parameter. Period. All they in their various degrees do, is inform of a relative exception to a given rule, and it’s up to reason to figure out the particulars related to it. Anything else is mere anthropology or (gaspsputterchoke) empirical or clinical psychology. Of which the proper speculative metaphysician treats as the proverbial red-headed stepchild, while the “vulgar class”, as Berkeley would say, or the “vulgar understanding” as Hume would call it, think them as some major importance in the governance of the fundamental human condition.
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Quoting Possibility
Surely you didn’t mean to say I can improve my relationship with a swimming pool if I only understand my diving into it doesn’t cause it any pain. Or, on the other hand, my relationship with the pool improves if I understand it appreciates me diving into it because that is one way the pool was meant to be treated. Your assertion can certainly be interpreted like that.
Point/counterpoint. All in good dialectical exercise.....
I had already said that prediction and trial and error were nowhere near as efficient as reason, so I’m not sure why you still feel the need to push this point. Besides, our confidence in reason is predicated on prediction and trial and error.
Quoting Mww
Is that really how you would process this event? A surprise situation is one that was not predicted - this is prediction error, and all the pain you feel is simply because you were unaware of any antecedent reason for - or potential structure to - the situation, which might have enabled you to predict it, and either prevent or minimise the resulting pain. It’s not about attributing blame or dismissing it as an exception, but about being aware of information that might have drawn your attention more readily to an increased potential for the situation, as well as the options available and your own capacity to ameliorate the overall potential surrounding the situation. Then if by chance it looks like it could happen again, it won’t be so much of a surprise. Of course you could dismiss it as the punk ass banga’s fault, or a “relative exception to a given rule” (people just don’t jump out of bushes to steal Rolex watches), and learn nothing from the experience. Clearly people do - I’m not saying make a big deal of it, but ignoring or beating the red-headed stepchild it is not going to make them cease to exist.
Quoting Mww
No, of course not. I’m talking about awareness and NOT consciousness, so all your talk about pain or appreciation is just a strawman. Read my other posts. What I’m referring to is more along the lines of recognising that the water in the pool will enable bacteria to develop in it over time (which may be harmful to me if I ingest or inhale it) unless I add chlorine at a level that is effective, but not so much that my eyes sting or my hair turns green.
Ok. Thanks, it was fun. For awhile.
For what reason does a language have synonyms?
Can you be conscious without being aware of anything? Can you be aware of anything without being conscious as well? Can you report anything that you are not either aware or conscious of?
Some will use examples of dreaming and hallucinating to distinguish between being aware and being conscious, but it seems that the distinction isn't between being aware or being conscious, rather the distinction lies in the interpretation of what it is that you are both conscious and aware of. Interpreting a hallucination to be an awareness/conscious of something outside of your head vs inside your head. In hallucinating you are aware/conscious of something but not sure if what you are aware/conscious of is located outside of your head or inside.
Conciousness is often defined more basically. Something is concious if it is "something for which there is something to be like." That is, there is a first person perspective corresponding to it.
Awarenesses can better denote meta cognition. When you zone out while driving, experiments suggest that sights and sounds still pass through conciousness, but they aren't kept in memory very long, and little executive function is dedicated to them. Metacognition is being aware of your own thoughts and perceptions, and awareness might be better term here. Cats might be concious of the noise of a mouse, but are they aware of the fact that they, a subjective viewpoint, are experiencing hearing a mouse?
However, in normal language this definition is not clear cut. It's arbitrary.