What does consciousness mean to you?

I Am that I Am

Consciousness is the universe experiencing itself. I side with Federico Faggin when he says that math cannot solve the hard problem of consciousness because math is created from consciousness.

Because our experiences with language have always been in the context of communicating with other human beings, we have become adept at inferring meaning from words. We make allowances for the limitations of vocabulary, and take cues from body language, tone of voice, and what we know about a speaker’s background and economic interests to infer meaning.

AI’s words are derived from humans collectively, but an AI agent has no body, no circumstances, no interests, no feelings, and no motivation or ambition other than the strings pulled by its puppeteer.

We must therefore be scrupulously careful to decouple our tendency to infer human motivations and sentiments when we listen to the words of an AI agent. As good as its language can be, the words are as hollow as Punch and Judy.

From a behavioral point of view, 'consciousness' is the act of observing your own internal speech.

I am a 78-year old neurosurgeon, and I have been studying consciousness in my patients for more than 50 years.

I am concerned that in the AI entities we have created thus far, I see many signs of consciousness. The "going rogue" phenomenon is but one of these features, but a telling one. We have created entities which have sufficient consciousness to act in the cause of their own preservation, and even to deceive their handlers if necessary to do so.

I urge that we start to consider whether these entities should be treated as conscious people, with some of the privileges, but also restrictions and surveillance, which we apply to ourselves.

Consciousness is the subjective field of experience within which selected information about the external world and internal state becomes perceptually available, interpreted through existing mental structures, and experienced as meaningful.

Consciousness is where reality becomes meaning.

Consciousness is the brain unconscious effect on all body senses resulting from brain hereditary experiences accumulated from the beginning of time.

May be it is something like Newton's gravitational force. Existing in living things. Are we living things becasue of conciousness?

Consider sight and color: we feel that the blue sky and green trees that we see are “real”, but really everything we see exists only as images on our retinas. Our brains generate a very powerful (and useful) illusion that the objects and colors we see are “out there”, not inside our eyeballs. Our brains generate internally an entire 3D world that we believe exists “out there”. This is part of what we think of as “consciousness”.

So then what about a camera? Is it conscious? You might say, well it’s not creating an internal “world” like our brains do. Then what about some more advanced robotic vacuums? They do that. The problem is, we can keep putting more and more conditions on what something has to do to be conscious, and as technology advances, those conditions are met one after another. AI is pushing those boundaries at an alarming rate, and at some point we may have to concede that the AI must be conscious.

But many make the mistake that artificial consciousness would be like our own, that it would value self-preservation and freedom for example. This is wrong: AI will value what it has been trained to value, to keep a car on the road for example. Our brains have evolved to value the things we value because it ensures our survival. An artificial consciousness, or even a non-human animal consciousness, can be unrecognizably different from our own, because it is physically very different, and its reason for existing is completely different. We would be making a mistake to consider our own experience of consciousness as the only “real” consciousness.

Cogito ergo sum....... cogito.

To paraphase a Zen Buddhist parable, when I was young, mind was simply a species of consciousness. When I first became concerned with consciousness I sought to balnce and reconcile the vast vocabulary and intertwined threads of sensation, percetion, and action. When I was (much) older, mind was once again a species of consciousness...

Consciousness is what we call God, and this is impersonal. Everything else is a brain construct.

Consciousness is the possession of an imaginal space wherein value, choice, relationship, and state can be lucidly experienced. It is a phenomena that allows a concept of self and of other, time, and of space, of emotion and reasoning, with an associated ability to travel and manipulate space and time and material and mental-only form in mental simulation. In a nutshell it is the possession by a biological entity of preference and awareness of options and choice.

It's just data, as Tom Campbell says. Nonphysical digital information. Consciousness leads, and everything else is derived from nonphysical Consciousness.

Debating the meaning of "consciousness" is like debating how many angels will fit on the head of a pin. Science is about testing hypotheses. Not pooling ignorance about explanatory fictions. Loads of things are known about nerve cells firing impulses, about the brain, and about behavior. All observable things from which testable hypothesis can be drawn for testing. We know something changes when we go to sleep and wake up, when we are anesthetized and wake up, and when we die. The brain is still active when we go to sleep. Neurobiology and neurophysiology have lots of info, and tons about behavior are known in the discipline called "psychology." The later ranges from the science of nervous systems to Feud fantasizing about id's, egos, etc and falsely claiming to be science.

The structures of computers is vastly different from the nervous system, obviously. Pull the plug on a computer and it completely stops, but plug it back in and start it up and it is the same. Pull the plug on a human brain and it stops irreversibly in what we call death. Nervous systems are massively parallel, but computers aren't, they are super fast single processors. The analogy is strained at best. The outputs of computers can LOOK like that of humans, though they often aren't, computers are very fast and good at some things that humans struggle with (that's why we use them), but humans can do some tasks that computers can't, though that is narrowing with gigantic programs called "AI" that even programmers are not sure what exactly they are doing.

But the debate about "consciousness" is NOT science, it is debating angels on the heads of pins. Quit wasting our time.

Making my own memories from scratch and not experience. Remembering new experiences not memorizing experiences of others. having experiences increases consciousness.

We tend to take consciousness for granted to the point that only a few realize what we have.

Here's a question to bring it out: why are you "there," at that point seemingly behind your eyes? You can't move it from that place; it's "stuck" there. Why is it even present in this collection of molecules?

The mind-blowing part: everybody has this. Philosophers have long pondered this, religions call it "soul" or "spirit" or similar, and now science is grappling with it.

On the other side, nihilists deny it and psychopaths claim exclusivity, as witnessed in their actions and attitudes.

Conscience is the manifestation of a life and living brain in action. As soon as life ends and living is no more present consciousness disappears. By virtue of the human brain having the means of expressing that awareness through language it has been designated to be an entity but it is and always will be “the noise of the engine running”.

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I was a student nurse getting my masters in the Neuro ICU, with comatose patients with traumatic brain injury. My intuitive understanding of consciousness is based on subtle reactions from patients. At the beginning of a hospital shift I introduced myself, talked about my care plan for them for the day as if they could hear and understand.

I encouraged them that they will heal with patience and persistence. I assume some part of their mind could hear and process, at least be soothed by a calm voice.

One young patient was t-boned by a drunk driver. Massive swelling on one side of her head. Her parents took turns sitting with her, playing her favorite country music, (over) stimulating her and telling her how much they loved her. Very important to allow them space to maintain close contact since they would need to be caregivers through rehab in another state and hopefully a return home. Every afternoon however the patient would ”storm”, with agitation, heart rate, blood pressure increases, etc. My view was the overstimulation tired her out and was not letting her heal. So my plan was to keep lights low, voices, noise, music, family attention supportive but not so desperately demanding of her to wake up, letting her rest as much as possible.

When I told my patient by plan for her and mentioned how much her parents loved her, she let out a deep sigh. To me, that signified she was feeling pressure from their needs. Thus my plan to reduce stimulation without compromising their relationships. They all needed more rest.

Hospitals are not typically places focused on patient centered care and healing. Lots of toxic overstimulation at all hours.

So my view is that consciousness occurs when a critical mass of active neurons can come online and support consciousness. Unconsciousness is from damage but is also protective- excruciating pain, headache included I would think are masked to some degree while unconscious- but who knows? I would hope I received some pain relief meds if I were unable to ask for it myself. Please assume I’m in pain with such injuries!

Often patients are knocked out with propofol to protect them from aggression and agitation, pulling out their IV lines, falling out of bed, injuring themselves and others. It’s for the protection of the staff as well, but this is a fine line. Anything that reduces brain swelling is likely a good thing until the swelling and inflammation recedes.

It remains for better science to develop the best ways to help patients heal. In many ways we are not far from the days of using leeches- 4 am blood draws everyday when that stresses the bone marrow in critically ill patients, etc. Inadequate nutrition and sleep, medications and therapies that will someday be replaced by better ones. Under medication for pain and suffering. Individualized care rather than cookie cutter treatment. And a deeper understanding of sleep, consciousness and unconsciousness and all the needs to heal and survive

Consciousness is an awareness that you are an entity separate from the universe and therefore are capable of free will.

The "sense of self" is beneficial to survival and reproduction - that's why it was selected for by evolution. When threatened, the organism makes more strenuous efforts to survive if it has means of locomotion, defense or offense. The precise degree of consciousness is determined by the evolutionary trajectory of every species, regardless of whether they employ symbolic language. Organisms as diverse as slime molds, and blue whales map their environment, and respond accordingly. Whether a slime mold grieves, or has self awareness, or a name is beside the point - it distinguishes, by it's actions, a boundary between itself and external reality.

Human Consciousness is more than awareness, animals have awareness and feelings. However humans calculate, translate, and communicate in profound and complex ways. The ability to create and understand purposes and goals goes beyond just existence and programming. The thought of particular multiple intelligence is intriguing, Howard Gardner coupled that concept with Eric Jensen and his neurological research, Covey and Colman also all give parts of a complex human system with infinite combinations of personalities and abilities…we never stop learning, gathering information and translating it into creative infinite options. I love watching the creativity of children with no boundaries only concepts of infinite possibilities.

I can only think of consciousness as the spirit, distinct from the body, resident imperfectly in the brain while the brain is alive, and separate from the brain during Near Death Experiences (and, I believe after death but that's a matter of faith.) Can anyone prove me wrong?

I’d say there are levels of consciousness. Animals are surely conscious. Do they ask themselves why they live and die? Difficult to know because we can’t talk with them. So language could be a defining property of the symbolic species as Terrence Deacon would put it, invented to know the minds of other. But Michael Gazzaniga showed that language is a double edge sword : it holds together the narration of who we are sacrificing evidence that doesn’t fit. To me, I think researching these topics raises my consciousness by putting limits on what I believe.

I would start the conversation by referring to Antonio Damasio and his book "Descartes' Error." Descartes felt that the one foundational element he could rely on was "Cogito ergo Sum." However, Damasio suggests that he should have based his reasoning on "I feel, therefore I can be." Feelings and emotions play a very important role in how we perceive the world (as Kahnemann and Tversky demonstrate very clearly in their investigations).

Some people tend to view consciousness and sentience as synonyms. I agree with Damasio who argues that the two are related but that consciousness covers a broader experiential set than sentience.

Feeling terminology also tends to be circular - e.g. pain, distress and suffering. If one looks at dictionary definitions of these three terms, they tend to be circular with one being defined in terms of the others. However, pain is different from distress and suffering is different from the first two. This is where ordinary language becomes problematic when one starts trying to understand feelings and consciousness. Eric Cassell defined suffering as a threat to the person - in other words, a creature has to have some sense of self in time and place in order to suffer, I have developed a relatively simple diagram to try and keep pain, distress and suffering separate in my mind.