timtyler comments on Dennett's "Consciousness Explained": Prelude - Less Wrong

12 Post author: PhilGoetz 10 January 2010 07:31AM

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Comment author: DanArmak 10 January 2010 10:46:54AM 1 point [-]

If consciousness is just perception that can be reflected on, it does not seem like a very big or a very strange problem.

Consciousness is (purportedly) the property of being able to perceive anything (not just itself). The property of having subjective experience. Most people claim to have such themselves, and that opens the question of what this property actually is and what other things may have it. Which is indeed a "big and strange" question, if you define this property as being extra-phenomenal - which is inherent in most discussions of subjective experience.

To deny consciousness as a problem, you need to deny the existence of your own subjective experience. Not just your objectively existing self-reporting of it, but the actual subjective experience that you feel and that I can't even in principle check if you feel.

On the other hand, this consciousness must be logically necessary (otherwise we get p-zombies) and cannot causally influence the objective universe (otherwise we get dualism and our physical theories are all wrong).

Comment author: timtyler 10 January 2010 11:23:09AM 3 points [-]

Re: "Consciousness is (purportedly) the property of being able to perceive anything (not just itself)."

Sleepwalkers perceive things (they must to be able to walk and balance). However, they are not conscious. Also, there is "Unconscious Perception".

...and we already have a word for perception. It's "perception".

So: consciousness is best not being defined that way.

Comment author: DanArmak 10 January 2010 12:00:20PM 2 points [-]

However, they are not conscious.

How do you know? Maybe they (and dreamers) are conscious, to a degree, they just don't form memories.

Comment author: gwern 10 January 2010 10:29:59PM 1 point [-]

And don't forget lucid dreamers can remember and carry out actions with their eyes.

Comment author: DanArmak 10 January 2010 10:31:40PM 0 points [-]

A good point. That certainly looks like a central component of consciousness (whatever that is) that's absent from sleepwalking.

Comment author: timtyler comment score below threshold [+] (7 children)

Comment author: DanArmak 10 January 2010 02:21:16PM 1 point [-]

What's the point of assuming they're unconscious if you can't give evidence for it?

Comment author: timtyler 10 January 2010 02:55:05PM -2 points [-]

This is just the conventional usage of the term:

"Sleepwalkers often have little or no memory of the incident, as they are not truly conscious."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepwalking

Comment author: PhilGoetz 10 January 2010 08:37:39PM * 3 points [-]

They're using the word "conscious" to mean "awake". People experience dreams; that's consciousness. They even remember them; though that's not necessary for consciousness. If no one remembered having dreams, we wouldn't be talking about them now.

It might be possible that dreams are never conscious: It would be possible to have a dream, not experience it at the time because you're not conscious, but have all the memories of it created, "remember" it later when you wake up, and experience it for the first time retrospectively, along with the illusion that you had been conscious at the time it happened.

Comment author: DanArmak 10 January 2010 07:17:43PM * 2 points [-]

That may be the normal usage, but it just assumes without evidence that sleepwalkers are not conscious. The explanation that they're conscious but do not form long-term memories is just as good.

Since sleepwalking is an actual phenomenon, it doesn't matter what the "conventional usage" is, only what the real thing's like.

Comment author: timtyler 10 January 2010 07:53:29PM -1 points [-]

Perception is even less of a problem than consciousness. Anything with an input device that is not being ignored perceives things. Keyboards, mice, cameras, microphones, all sources of data capture from the environment qualify. If you define consciousness as perception, that just trivialises it further.

Comment author: DanArmak 10 January 2010 07:58:52PM * 0 points [-]

Edit: we ought to have a rigorous definition of consciousness before discussing whether such marginal cases are or are not conscious (or to what degree they are conscious). Since many books, like Consciousness Explained, tried to give a clear definition & explanation and still aren't accepted by everyone, perhaps there's no point in arguing about whether sleepwalkers are "conscious" or not as it will come down to different definitions.

As far as facts are concerned, and avoiding the c-word: brain activity during sleepwalking can apparently be quite high, since it includes whole subsystems working and reacting to the environment (walking around, using objects, dressing, driving...) This may be more than during (some? most?) dreams. But I am certainly not an expert.

It's true that "consciousness" or awareness or what have you is much lower than during full wakefulness. In addition to not forming memories, sleepwalkers can't pass for an awake person or hold a conversation, AFAIK.

timtyler comments on Dennett's "Consciousness Explained": Prelude - Less Wrong

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