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(HUMAN?) CONSCIOUSNESS

This is a reply to the Psyche-D list upon the moderator's challenge: George Buckner wrote Sep/08 in "Guidelines to the list" (among others):

1. The basic aim of the list ... understanding the nature, function, and underlying mechanism of Consciousness (=Cs).... (furthermore):

A) How do we define Cs ...

-- He also challenged me (in a private message) to concentrate on HUMAN Cs and posted on the list a very considerate survey and opinion of the topic. From the diverse posts on the list I extract from Bob Hetrick (Sep/11): ...I agree with many respondents to Sue [Pockett]: "Cs won't be defined..." and from Timo Jarvilehto's Sep/26 post: "We cannot explain or define Cs ... "what is" is the wrong question" -- and from his Sep/30 post: "I think it is a big mistake to regard Cs as a thing, I would rather compare it with the steering mechanism of a car and this is certainly not located in the steering wheel." Changing the ubiquitous style of most discussion lists (=paste some text and add some quips) I attempt to describe my stance of the topic as I see it. I wonder if such a lengthy essay will be posted. In any case, I refer to my websites

(see below).

STUDYING HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS
Thousands of scholars of diverse principles participate in it using different definitions, methodologies, approaches. Philosophy, cognitive sciences, psychology, the medical branches, physiology, and others, all the way through the bio-, electro-, and molecular chemistry, and physics, even post-quantum speculations, (which closes the circle to philosophy), are involved. in concert with (paleo)anthropological, zoological, and inanimate evolution, even the religions and mysticism. All want to have a say about the workings of the human mind. The conclusions are just as diversified as the fields of inquiry.
I. Consciousness (Cs) - (in general)

The term Cs is not defined to the satisfaction or in agreement of all involved. "To be conscious" is an obvious headstart with the proposition that "everybody knows what Cs is" - a truism, part of a basic vocabulary of the average educated participants in all (may we say?) civilized languages. However this flare-up in research activity over the past 2-3 decades - after a rather calm two millennia in the topic - aims at more than just a dictionary-type struggle with a word. "Unconscious" may not be the opposite of the conscious as used in diverse aspects, just as "conscious of" refers to a different principle from Cs. The most visible line of activity, a "headstart" (pun intended), concentrates on the brain, on the function of the neurons by instrumental inquiry into the physiological processes, observable in concert with a mental activity assigned to Cs. A conclusion is quickly drawn: when a conscious activity is "A" and the instrument reads "B", then (of course!) A must be a consequence of a process B' (resulting in the reading B), meaning: the process B' is causing A. "Must be so", because there is no other experience or any alternative within the anatomy-based reductionist science. A pretty flimsy connection it is as Dave Chalmers quickly pointed out: the 'easy problem', the neuro-physiological brainfunction, readable by available lab-instruments is a 3rd person observation, while the 'hard problem' consists of connecting this physiological domain to another domain of the (conscious) personal experience, a 1st person (mental) observation. The 'easy' problem complicated itself into multidisciplinary (hard) studies and theories, while the 'hard problem turned out to be pretty easy to 'speak of' in diverse speculations about the ultimate level available to us in our latest epistemic evolution. There are zillions of publications about "lab-results with speculative explanations" vs. zillions of publications of "just speculative explanations" without experimental support. The second group includes theorists of cognitive-, systems-, and (post-)quantum physical sciences, furthermore dualists and other mystical thinkers. The physicalists (several lines of them) attach calculations and equational references to their speculations which are followable only by a few - judgeable by even less. This pertains to both (post)quantum and instrumentalist-neurological physicalistic theories. The 'hard' problem people consider thought, emotions, (free?)-will, 'being conscious about being conscious', 'feeling to feel', the self, etc. all within, in addition to, or instead of Cs. Human Cs, that is. Both lines apply arguments from the other side in support to their own theories. The quality of the explanations is judged by the explainers themselves: one blows one's own horn.

II. The Human Cs-aspect

Evolution, as it can be observed (everywhere, except the public schools of Kansas) shows a constancy in increasing complexity. (To avoid a distraction into this quagmire of a concept with emergence, chaos, etc., let us use the folk-term here, mostly as "complicated" systems, composed of multiple aspects/components). Within the line of evolutionary complexification the most evolved (complicated) system - we know of - is the human brain with its 11b neurons, proteins, many dozen synaptic transmitters, physicalities, connectivity, chemical housekeeping, extensive and intensive body-dispachership, just to name some, all in the studied material systems, that is. In ideation as well: the human mind scores highest in the so far studied ideational systems we know of. In reductionist science - the only one we could practice so far - we did something, necessary to facilitate our observational inquiry to stay within the capacity of our mind (Cs?): science chopped off the world into chapters of the size we can handle (layers? strata?) and then studied, analyzed these portions as substantial units into their compositions. It works in a 3rd person experience, pretty efficiently at that, developing our world of technology to manipulate nature (to some extent). Accordingly the "highest level complexity" (the HUMAN) is also chopped off into the above mentioned aspects: material system and ideation. Or: the structural and the functional. The 'easy' and the 'hard'. (Interjection: physics uses static structures to "create" dynamic functions, while chemistry uses function to build structure.) The two problems of Cs (hard and easy) are the reductionistically separated views to ideation and matter, respectively - of the SAME complexity. 'Human' covers both. The two form ONE unit and it is pointless to speak about mentality without (its) material support (as e.g. an immortal soul) - just as it is without merit to consider brainfunction without a connected ideation, the mentality (see the incredible zombies). Consequently WE, - at the top of the presently viewable evolutionary complexity level (we know of) are composed of an interconnected mentality/structure unity called 'human'. (Again, let us not be distracted by the further - holistic - interconnections. There are efficient research-trends to identify the "skin"-effect of subunits with more intrinsic connections within the 'unit' than with the environment). Should we really study the "Cs-aspect of humans" which science has separated into an ideational (1st person study) and a matterly (3rd person study) views? Reductionist science (as I said: the efficient way available to the present level of our epistemic evolution) requires the re(de)ductive analysis into components, to draw an understanding of the composition itself. It is a phenomenological view of a complex. We ought to know what elements (components) should be considered, contributing to the view of the total. As a first step we should go down the complexity line to reduce the complicated components into simpler, already studied ones. This is what efficient science does. Neurologists went down (into) the black box all the way to the neurons, synaptic processes, interatomic oscillations, while the physicalists went even into submolecular (subatomic?) details in their inquiry. All these are "functional" reductions to the functions of the "brain", all are necessary and useful. Such scientific reduction into the 'already known' ingredients is explanatory with respect to more complex tissue-functions, connectivity, self-regulation, substitutional correction of damaged parts, genetic coding, etc. All such study 'dissects the human brain into its parts to study them at a level of available science. Once it comes to mentality, however, the case becomes 'hard'. We want to consider the entire human Cs in toto. It is more than we can handle with today's capabilities. Especially not in its relationship with the material tool working for (with) it. Why do we want to stay at the very complicated level of the human mind total to study it? Going down the complexity lane to compare the phenomena of 'human Cs' with simpler (ideational) constructs of less complicated life-forms, then even "inanimate" items, we find cases which already have been studied (even instrumentally) and are named at their own levels. Let us find the connections and the transcendence into our higher complexity level and the understanding will grow. We have a jigsaw puzzle on hand. The assembled complex shows a picture all right, but the composing elements are well hidden. We can enjoy the overall picture, identify its colors, shapes, but the understanding of its mechanism of how it works (is composed) is still a puzzle.

"Name-calling" (calling it human consciousness) does not help much the scientific effort.

Madison, October 1999

Websites: "http://members.delphi.com/janosapu" - Page Four

"http://pages.prodigy.net/jamikes" Human Consciousness