Perspective, the thing that hides behind consciousness
First of all, I'm new to this forum. I've been lurking here for a while and finally decided to make my own account. Let me just say for the record I'm not that well versed in philosophy seeing as I never fully engaged in it but I grew up with an inquisitive mind, and have always been curious about things that are especially mysterious and generally mind-boggling. I just thought perhaps in this forum I'd have the opportunity to learn more and share my own thoughts.
Ok, introduction over, let me just cut to the chase since I don't want to put up a huge vapid wall of text.
Consciousness is a big question that baffles everyone, and I believe that most of you here have engaged in these discussions plenty of times and you have so much to share. But this isn't really what I wanted to talk about. Consciousness and awareness are features that we all share in common. Although there's something behind consciousness that is unique in every single living thing that has ever lived (not that I know of). And I've coined this thing as 'perspective', for a lack of better term.
Perspective is something unique to each individual. I have my own, you have yours and whatnot. I can't have access to your perspective, and you can't have access to mine. Our perspective holds our consciousness. It is this thing that gives us our own qualia of experience. Without it, can our consciousness survive? Can it still make autonomous decisions? But in that case, if the consciousness that I have right now was bereft of my perspective, it would probably be instilled by another perspective to take my place. Who knows?
When I was born, how did 'nature' conjure up my perspective into this body? Why and how did it decide that my perspective is the right one? These were questions that I asked myself since I was 9 years old. Why am I me? Why am I not my brother? How did 'I' happen to be?
Anyway, this is the thought I never had the chance to discuss with anyone. I tried raising it with my friends but none of them had any good answers. Would really like to gain some insight from someone who has delved very deep into this subject matter. :)
Ok, introduction over, let me just cut to the chase since I don't want to put up a huge vapid wall of text.
Consciousness is a big question that baffles everyone, and I believe that most of you here have engaged in these discussions plenty of times and you have so much to share. But this isn't really what I wanted to talk about. Consciousness and awareness are features that we all share in common. Although there's something behind consciousness that is unique in every single living thing that has ever lived (not that I know of). And I've coined this thing as 'perspective', for a lack of better term.
Perspective is something unique to each individual. I have my own, you have yours and whatnot. I can't have access to your perspective, and you can't have access to mine. Our perspective holds our consciousness. It is this thing that gives us our own qualia of experience. Without it, can our consciousness survive? Can it still make autonomous decisions? But in that case, if the consciousness that I have right now was bereft of my perspective, it would probably be instilled by another perspective to take my place. Who knows?
When I was born, how did 'nature' conjure up my perspective into this body? Why and how did it decide that my perspective is the right one? These were questions that I asked myself since I was 9 years old. Why am I me? Why am I not my brother? How did 'I' happen to be?
Anyway, this is the thought I never had the chance to discuss with anyone. I tried raising it with my friends but none of them had any good answers. Would really like to gain some insight from someone who has delved very deep into this subject matter. :)
Comments (45)
Care to elaborate?
Do you care to elaborate on your name?
The Universe is fundamentally memory that is in constant flow due to Creative action. We see this memory as habitual movement with slight, continuous changes. We feel it as time.
Memory is everywhere and is never destroyed. What we may call inherited characteristics or inborn skills or quizzical innate abilities (idiot savants), is memory evolved from the past. We are all different and because of this have different perspectives.
I have always thought perspective is a result of consciousness, as opposed to a part of it.
Our consciousness allows us to experience our environment and therefore creates a unique perspective based on that information. Perspective cannot exist without consciousness, but is not an intrinsic part of our psyche.
It was a randomly generated email i got the first time i set up a hotmail account, years ago. I guess it just stuck.
Interesting, but I have to disagree with you. Since its not the topic of the thread however, perhaps we'll get the chance to discuss it another time.
Saying "memory is embedded in the fabric of reality" is redundant since everything that exists is embedded in reality, otherwise we would not say it exists.
Memory is nothing more then a sequence of chemical and electrical signals the brain can recreate. Consciousness may collect memories but it is the initial information, and not necessarily the recalled information, that shapes our perspective: our interpretation of that information.
I guess when one is faced with new information that might change, or at least adjust, one's perspective, we might use memories as a reference to see if the new information aligns with one's current perspective and decide whether or not it needs amending. However, i would consider that a process after the fact of forming a perspective, and not a part of it.
And memory can cease, since anything that can exist can also be destroyed (cease to exist).
Yes. And memory has persistence though it is evolving. A straightforward observation.
Quoting SnowyChainsaw
It's the other way around. Memory is fundamental and persists with our without the physical manifestation. A memory signal persists whether or not there is a receiver, be it a TV set or brain.
That is the rub. Memory persists, it doesn't cease, nothing ever ceases, which is the answer to the OP's question of the origin of perspective.
Suppose you say, in the ordinary way of things, "I'm seeing a tree." The "story" around this includes a whole bunch of stuff about the world that we normally take for granted - e.g. that you're a physical object, perceiving another physical object.
But then suppose you set all that stuff to the side - it may or may not be true, but what can you truthfully say about your experience without presupposing that background story to be true? Well you could say something like "I'm perceiving a patch of green and brown" or something of that sort. But that's an incomplete reduction - what could the "I" be in that situation, if it's not the normal you with a body?
Perhaps an abstract sort of "point of view"? Or, to reverse the metaphor, some sort of bare "capacity?" A mere space-for-experiences-to-occur-in? But that, again, implies some sort of distance, some kind of space or space analogue - and if it's not physical distance, what kind of distance is it?
Diving deeper, we can say something like, "There exist certain patches of what I call "colour" that seem to reveal a perspective on a world." But even that's not quite right, because what is this "calling things names" process? It's also something that's revealed as part of the picture. IOW, the thought "this is green" is itself part of the "show" of what's being revealed, it's not something that stands outside the show, like the original self stood physically outside its perceived object, or the notional point-of-view stands outside its presented show.
So ultimately you just come down to an event, we know not what it is or what to call it (we're long past the point where calling it "consciousness" at all - or even "matter" for that matter - makes any sense we'd normally understand), that seems to reveal a perspective, and that perspectival quality, the way it sort of "shapes" the content of what's presented, is the faint remnant of "me" or an "observer" of the show.
Welcome to the forum Susu.
What's preoccupied me lately is the I-you relation. We spend a lot of time on this 'How did I get to be me?' question, and the related ones about subjective point-of-view or perspective. And an analytic answer like gurugeorge's expands from that to I-it...'I perceive a this or a that.' No particular quarrel with that. Just that a particular, instrumental idea of the world starts to unfold before you know it.
I feel I experience the world primarily as I-you. Indeed, the 'you' multiplies as the 'I' gets to know oneself.
I think it just happens from birth. One major difference between chimp mothers and human mothers is...chimp mothers expect their children to learn by imitating them...but human mothers also imitate their infants from the word go. Mum shows me how my actions are. I see myself reflected. And at the same time I recognise the 'you' in Mum. The other. There is no 'I' without 'the other'. We are related but separate.
If by memory he means information then information cannot be created or destroyed. Where information is stored? In fabric of universe. There are theoretical and experimental support for this idea. You can google "information" and "conservation" yourself.
I agree, but the memory is not the same as information. Information is an arbitrary term used to conceptualize the fabric of reality. Memory, however, is the recollection of the fabric of reality and can be altered, created and destroyed.
So, we're locally individuated (and mutually separated), which automatically sets a perspective, both in scale, scope and experience.
My here-now is hence more or less my (mutable) perspective, which differs from others'.
Destroyed, probably not, since it is the fabric of the universe. However, it does morph and evolve. This is what we actually experience in every day life. Memory changes.
The fabric of reality, by definition, is unchanging: it is the constant that defines existence. If memory can change, then it is not the fabric of reality. If memory is a recollection of the fabric of the reality, then it is open to interpretation and therefore can change, evolve, be created, be destroyed and be incorrect.
It is always changing. Just observe.
Sometimes a seemingly difficult question like that is just the result of metaphysical assumptions that aren't valid. For example, the metaphysics of Materialism has been hammered into us from elementary-school on.
Materialism has several aliases. A currently fashionable one is "Naturalism". Also, the word "Nominalism" is often, currently fashionably, used to refer to what is really another way of wording Materialism.
Sometimes, answering questions such as the ones that you expressed, requires a completely different metaphysics.
I'll answer that in terms of the inevitable and uncontroversial metaphysics that I've been proposing here.
I've posted the whole proposition at so many discussions in these forums, that I shouldn't repeat it all here.
But, to just summarize:
All that you know about the physical world is from your experience, in fact all of it is your experience. That's all there is, for you.
There are abstract if-then facts. There couldn't have not been abstract if-then facts. And, just as inevitably, there are complex inter-referring systems of inevitable abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals.
In fact, there are infinitely-many such complex logical systems.
In fact, there's one whose events and relations are those that you encounter in your experience,
That complex system of inter-referring inevitable abstract logical facts about hypotheticals is your life-experience possibility-story,
Let me re-quote your question:
Quoting Susu
Your perspective is prior to this life. Your perspective consists of your inclinations, predispositions, etc.
Those are attributes of the protagonist of one of the infinitely-many life-experience possibility-stories.
So, why are you in a life? Because you, someone with your perspective, is the protagonist of one of the infinitely-many life-experience possibility-stories.
Being in a life is part of the your nature, as the possessor of your perspective, the protagonist of a life-experience possibility-story.
So it's no surprise that you're in a life. That's why this life started.
Your perspective is what it started from. ...your perspective and the life-experience possibility-story whose protagonist has that perspective.
So there's really no question of why it's the right perspective for you. It is you, and it's the reason why this life started.
Michael Ossipoff
I would agree with the OP that perspective is an expression of each unique spatio-temproal embodiment, and in that sense is prior to consciousness. Of course, under different interpretations of the terms the order of priority could be reversed.
Interesting. I suppose the question is how to define consciousness then? If it can be defined as a spatio-temproal embodiment's ability to form a unique perspective, then consciousness would would need to be present prior to perspective in order to form said perspective.
Yes, but there is a sense in which it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that all beings have or maybe better, are, a perspective; whether or not we might think they are conscious. This is the sense in which they all live within and interact with their own unique niche within the world. The totality or range of what they can encounter and interact with, consciously or unconsciously, could be termed their 'perspective'. That's kind of the way I read the OP.
Ah, i see what your getting at. I'd argue that when you apply the term perspective in this way, the term is actually referring to your perspective as an observer. Id est, you are using your perspective and applying it to to something else rather then observing the formation of a separate, unique perspective. Whereas this does not necessarily prove the phenomenon is not forming a perspective, it also cannot suggest that it is. Unless the observed phenomenon is able to communicate its unique perspective, which would suggest consciousness, then there is no real way of knowing.
I think you are looking at it as though I am imputing a 'perspective as qualia' or something of the sort, to other creatures. I don't think of it that way; all I see myself doing with the idea of perspective in this context is applying it as a term to signify the idea of a particular, unique orientation to, and interaction with, the world that each creature comprises.
I'm not sure "qualia" is the right word but yeah, i'd say your close enough. You see, i don't think you can equate perspective and interaction. If you were to observe a rock floating in space, you, as a conscious observer, can say that it is in front of you and this would be you forming a unique perspective. The rock, assuming it is conscious, might then say that you are behind it and that would be different perspective to yours. However, if the rock is not conscious, then the act of you observing it does not inherently form a perspective for the rock that is different from yours. What i think you are doing is applying your perspective as a point of reference and saying: "since i observe the rock, the rock's perspective is that I am nearby." Since the rock has no way of communicating that it is conscious of your presence, i don't think you should assume that it is either conscious nor forming a perspective, regardless of your interaction.
In one sense I would say the rock does not have a perspective in relation to you because you have no effect on it. Looked at another way, if your seeing of the rock is thought of as being part of the rock, in the sense of contributing to its whole history, then you do have an effect on the rock. This latter is not an efficient "physical" effect, though.
I am not attributing any consciousness to the rock either way.
The quantum physics double-slit experiment suggests the very act of observation is indeed a significant interaction, although not necessarily "a part of the rock". However, I think we are merely arguing the definitions of "consciousness" and "perspective".
To simplify my definitions:
Consciousness is the ability to interpret information and then form a perspective.
Perspective is the result of interpreting information, and therefor needs consciousness to be formed.
If you agree with my definitions then perspective comes from consciousness, but is not necessarily a part of it.
Yes, I have already agreed there may be different interpretations, and that the thought of the priority of either consciousness or perspective will depend on which you favour.
Indeed, so we agree that there are different interpretations therefore we can now agree to disagree. It was a good discussion though, plenty of food for thought. :)
On that we agree! :)
Consider the universe is entirely information, and while not everything in existence has to understand the information, it all interacts with it. Therefore anything can have a perspective, or everything interprets/interacts with information.
I don't consider just any interaction able to form a perspective. The interaction must have a consciousness behind it in order to interpret (note: interpret does not necessarily mean understand) the information and form a perspective. You also cannot assume all interactions are interpretations of information. If you put a rock on a table, the rock has no concept of what the table is or is not, only that it is counteracting gravity etc. This is an example of an interaction without interpretation. If you sat on a table you are not only prevented from falling or whatever, but you also know that it is a table or at least an object. You are taking in the information and interpreting it, coming to a conclusion that is your perspective.
I know it seems radical to jump from we are conscious to the whole universe is conscious. But follow the path and this is what it seems. I mean we are the universe and we are as we are.
When you say "perspective," you seem to indicate what is traditionally termed a "mind."
Your mind (feel free to ignore my nomenclature), as a separate entity from yourself, is illusory (it's often termed the "user illusion"). That might not feel intuitively right, but a lot of truths don't. You can ask questions like "why am I me?" because as a human being, you are self-aware, and that means that you can effectively think about yourself as a separate entity because you can observe yourself and your mental processes and distinguish, "that is me." "I am thinking about philosophy." &c.
I would posit also that asking, "why am I not my brother?" is logically equivalent to asking, "why is 6 not 7?" or "why is red not blue?"
Actually, i agree with that to some extent. Concepts like this have been rattling around my noodle for awhile now. I just haven't really fleshed out or explored the concepts in-depth. I also think this might be a requirement of the definition for life.
However, the key difference between us and plants/single celled organisms is that we do understand the information we come into contact with, at least we think we do/are able to ponder upon it.
I would argue that plants etc are not able to interpret the information, merely act on chemically fueled instincts but I'm not so sure that is true anymore.
Ones ability to react, ponder, or understand is merely due to the presence of a CPU with external sensors. It would be incredibly boring to exist in a universe where that had any significant meaning. Just merely a fact and a difference.
Oh, I was basically just saying things like plants don't really have a center to bring things together. I agree that the mind is much more complex than a CPU, haha.
I don't see that as something particularly significant, not in the grand scheme of things. Our abilities to interpret, ponder on and understand information may seem impressive to some, but that is only because we don't have a frame of reference apart from ourselves. It is safe to assume, I believe, that the universe is full of mysteries we are so far unable to even detect.
Nevertheless, having a CPU, not having a CPU and the processing power of that CPU provides a good indication of whether an event/entity/arbitrary mass of exponential probability has intelligence/conciseness/self awareness.
I like that. It's crazy, the energies come together and create intelligence, how it can work in a chaotic harmony.