Discussion Question:
Who is generally more conscious of what it is like to be senseless: you, or a rock?
¶ Years ago I contemplated consciousness, and came to the conclusion that I'd rather believe that there is consciousness to all matter rather than assuming that there exists some magical and mysterious divide between some creatures which are conscious, and everything else which is not. Of course, ultimately I don't know, but given those two options, I concluded I preferred animism.
¶ More recently, as I've been studying and learning more, and honestly, thinking less, I've come to doubt myself a bit and develop a greater trust in the conclusions of others. However, today as I thought about the topic again, I still found my old conclusion seeming to hold up just as well. Furthermore, I feel my learning may eventually allow me to better articulate my opinion.
¶ Thus, I have articulated this concept, "what it is like to be senseless."
¶ In the past, when I would speak of believing that all things have consciousness to them, people would make silly assumptions like supposing that I believe inanimate objects can think, or feel, or sense the world around them. I don't know why they were so quick to jump to this conclusion, as I never said any such thing. I tried to explain that that was not what I was saying.
¶ I tried to distinguish between "phenomenal consciousness" and other kinds of consciousness, such as what I have long called "coherent responsiveness." In behaviourism, we would want to talk about whether or not an entity is responding to its environment in a coherent way. Clearly, a rock doesn't respond much. However, a classic and very intriguing question to play with is the philosophical musing of whether or not a rock experiences "phenomenal consciousness;" that is, whether or not it experiences "qualia," or, "what it is like."
¶ To be especially clear that I'm not asking whether or not a rock experiences what it is like to feel pain, or to contemplate the meaning of its existence, or to watch the sun set, I have worded the question, "what is it like to be senseless?" Does the rock experience what it is like to be senseless?
¶ And, for that matter, I have also long asked related questions like "what is nothingness like," or "what is it like to not exist?" These questions intrigued me, for, it is different to experience the absence of something than it is to not experience that something. I could see that there is no ball on the floor, or it could be too dark for me to see if there is a ball on the floor. I could remember not knowing if the ball was there, or I could not remember having had known whether or not the ball was there. I could remember having had forgotten, or I may be oblivious to the thought one way or another, my attention turned completely elsewhere. With my attention elsewhere, what does that leave where my attention is not?
¶ Perhaps, being that "I" am constantly occupied with somethings, I am left ignorant of what nothings are like. Perhaps if I were not so occupied with somethings, I would touch upon the experience of nothingness. Yet, could I remember nothingness even if I'd known it?
¶ One way or another, let me not stray too far from my original question. Tell me your opinion on the matter, "who is generally more conscious of what it is like to be senseless, you, or a rock?" In general, what do you think of the idea that inanimate objects experience what it is like to be senseless? It would also be helpful if you could check the box to email the follow up comments to you, so that you can respond to other peoples thoughts and maybe we can get a bit of a discussion going between people.
Edit: To be clear, by "senseless" I basically mean the state of not being conscious of one's environment (due to lack of senses) or one's thoughts or feelings (do to not having any, lacking a mind, the "sixth" sense). In asking if they are "conscious" of it, I mean phenomenal conscious. Do they experience what it is like to not be conscious of the world around them or within them?
Also, in case you don't know what I mean by phenomenal consciousness and "what it is like," here is Frank Jackson's gedankenexperiment of Mary the colour scientist: http://youtu.be/gZy3Ky9y_fg. I do not believe the rock processes data, but it may experience what it is like to not be processing data.
Who is generally more conscious of what it is like to be senseless: you, or a rock?
¶ Years ago I contemplated consciousness, and came to the conclusion that I'd rather believe that there is consciousness to all matter rather than assuming that there exists some magical and mysterious divide between some creatures which are conscious, and everything else which is not. Of course, ultimately I don't know, but given those two options, I concluded I preferred animism.
¶ More recently, as I've been studying and learning more, and honestly, thinking less, I've come to doubt myself a bit and develop a greater trust in the conclusions of others. However, today as I thought about the topic again, I still found my old conclusion seeming to hold up just as well. Furthermore, I feel my learning may eventually allow me to better articulate my opinion.
¶ Thus, I have articulated this concept, "what it is like to be senseless."
¶ In the past, when I would speak of believing that all things have consciousness to them, people would make silly assumptions like supposing that I believe inanimate objects can think, or feel, or sense the world around them. I don't know why they were so quick to jump to this conclusion, as I never said any such thing. I tried to explain that that was not what I was saying.
¶ I tried to distinguish between "phenomenal consciousness" and other kinds of consciousness, such as what I have long called "coherent responsiveness." In behaviourism, we would want to talk about whether or not an entity is responding to its environment in a coherent way. Clearly, a rock doesn't respond much. However, a classic and very intriguing question to play with is the philosophical musing of whether or not a rock experiences "phenomenal consciousness;" that is, whether or not it experiences "qualia," or, "what it is like."
¶ To be especially clear that I'm not asking whether or not a rock experiences what it is like to feel pain, or to contemplate the meaning of its existence, or to watch the sun set, I have worded the question, "what is it like to be senseless?" Does the rock experience what it is like to be senseless?
¶ And, for that matter, I have also long asked related questions like "what is nothingness like," or "what is it like to not exist?" These questions intrigued me, for, it is different to experience the absence of something than it is to not experience that something. I could see that there is no ball on the floor, or it could be too dark for me to see if there is a ball on the floor. I could remember not knowing if the ball was there, or I could not remember having had known whether or not the ball was there. I could remember having had forgotten, or I may be oblivious to the thought one way or another, my attention turned completely elsewhere. With my attention elsewhere, what does that leave where my attention is not?
¶ Perhaps, being that "I" am constantly occupied with somethings, I am left ignorant of what nothings are like. Perhaps if I were not so occupied with somethings, I would touch upon the experience of nothingness. Yet, could I remember nothingness even if I'd known it?
¶ One way or another, let me not stray too far from my original question. Tell me your opinion on the matter, "who is generally more conscious of what it is like to be senseless, you, or a rock?" In general, what do you think of the idea that inanimate objects experience what it is like to be senseless? It would also be helpful if you could check the box to email the follow up comments to you, so that you can respond to other peoples thoughts and maybe we can get a bit of a discussion going between people.
Edit: To be clear, by "senseless" I basically mean the state of not being conscious of one's environment (due to lack of senses) or one's thoughts or feelings (do to not having any, lacking a mind, the "sixth" sense). In asking if they are "conscious" of it, I mean phenomenal conscious. Do they experience what it is like to not be conscious of the world around them or within them?
Also, in case you don't know what I mean by phenomenal consciousness and "what it is like," here is Frank Jackson's gedankenexperiment of Mary the colour scientist: http://youtu.be/gZy3Ky9y_fg. I do not believe the rock processes data, but it may experience what it is like to not be processing data.
An e-mail conversation while the comment feed here wasn't working:
ReplyDeleteDerek Salway:
"I suppose to be senseless, is to be aware. A rock, to the aware is senseless, however it is not aware of its senselessness so cannot of itself be. A person can be alive, going through the routine of life, doing, going and acting, yet not be aware. That is senseless."
Sebastian Salway:
"So, a rock is aware, while a person only may sometimes be aware? Did you mean "to be senseless is to be not aware?" I added an edit to the end of the post trying to clarify what I meant by some of my words.
"Is the rock's lack of awareness of its senselessness more equivalent to its not detecting, acknowledging, or comprehending the fact that it is senseless; or is the rock's lack of awareness of its senselessness indeed equivalent to its not experiencing the phenomenon of being senseless? If it is the former interpretation, then I agree, but of the later interpretation I have my doubts."
Derek Salway:
"One must be aware to know if they are senseless. A rock is senseless but is not aware of its senselessness, however a person who is unaware is not recognize the rock's senselessness. A person who goes through each day unaware is living but is senseless, not having a sense of their life."
Dad, by "awareness" do you mean "phenomenal consciousness," or do you mean something more like sensing, comprehending, or acknowledging?
ReplyDeleteHmm. I feel as though I still don't quite grasp the question, but maybe it isn't meant to be grasped. Breaking it down into its possible finer points: A conscious entity can't perceive what it's like to not be conscious, and a non-conscious entity can't perceive period. Thus the two would be equally unconscious of what it's like to be senseless.
ReplyDeleteArgh!!!
ReplyDeleteBlogger just deleted my comment when I went to post. Unfortunately I didn't have the whole thing backed up on my clipboard like I normally do before I press post on anything. I'll see about trying to remember what I wrote.
Perhaps the problem arises in mistakenly attributing consciousness to particular entities. Is consciousness something I posses? Is it something I do to the world? Or, is consciousness simply the fact that there is qualia in conjunction with everything that exists within my life?
ReplyDeletePerhaps instead we could say that when your mind is experienced, it feels like what it is like to be you, and when my mind is experienced, it feels like what it is like to be me. Since my mind only contains so much about your mind, and vice versa, what it is like to be one of us includes not experiencing what it is like to be the other of us. The unique thing we have is not consciousness, but rather a limitation to our minds, which are the objects of consciousness. This is why I wonder, what makes me any more special an object of consciousness than a rock? I have a mind, and that's special, but it certainly doesn't seem to make me a more privileged candidate for being an object of consciousness, it merely means that the contents of consciousness corresponding to my mind will be much more interesting.
And that I suppose will have to do as a re-writing of my lost comment, and will have to suffice for introduce the one sentence I did not lose:
Is there such a thing as "what it is like to be a rock?"
Conversation on facebook, transferred here with permission:
ReplyDeleteRuth Mayer:
Although...a rock would need to experience consciousness in order to know if it were senseless would it not? It may indeed BE senseless, but how would it differentiate between anything else due to its not knowing? You are a very deep and inquisitive thinker....to what value?
Sebastian Salway:
I don't think that a rock would "know" that it is senseless any more after having had also experienced not being senseless, if that is what you are saying, because a rock has no means of comparing the two experiences even if it could experience both. I propose that it would simply experience senselessness, though it wouldn't realise it was senseless by any means.
It would know what it is like to be senseless, but would not know that it is senseless.