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Theories of consciousness - classification

These can be classified along several axes. The physical theories such as those due to Penrose, Broad, or McFadden consider that conscious experience is in some way directly supervenient on a physical field. McFadden's CEMI theory is explicitly not a QM theory (McFadden moved away from this viewpoint). Matti Pittanken's complicated theory is a mixed QM/geometric theory, Broad's is entirely geometrical with no QM component. The term 'physical theories of consciousness' covers the entire spectrum of these theories whereas 'QM Theories of consciousness' only covers QM.

Another axis is dualist vs non-dualist but this leads to consciousness-only and physical theories being placed together and if we classify direct realism as dualist the direct realists will be enraged.

Consciousness and Mind

This is good as far as it goes. There is considerably more information to be found in the teachings of Buck on Consciousness and Dr. Ernest Holmes on the processes of Mind an Universal Law and how to use it for the Highest Good of Humanity as well as for yourself.

restructure document - rewrite

It is looking better now but still needs some attention, especially in phenomenal consciousness and the sequence of items.

Quantum approaches

Popper wouldnn't let you dismiss these as 'crank' unless you have a better theory to put in their place. Hameroff's website has links to papers that show evidence for a corellation between microtubule activity and anaesthesia (he is a medical doctor who knows his stuff).

20/09/04 Removed "The hypothesis that consciousness relies upon quantum mechanics is a view discounted by all but a tiny number of scientists." This is not an academic statement, its import is covered in the following sentence that no real evidence has been found.

Blakemore

Suggest we remove the Blakemoor link. She is a well-known hanger-on in the consciousness research community, and doesn't appear to have anything new to say that isn't already in Dennett 1991. Just because you have media friends who get you on TV doesn't mean you are any good (see Kevin Warwick).

Incorrigibility

Made reference to the technical philosophical term among philsophers of mind. icut4u 21:08, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Empirical description of consciousness

This was added to provide a reference to the work of the most famous of the philosophers and scientists who are associated with this subject. The quotations were included so that the famous philosophers could speak in their own words, this whole area being so contentious that any other form of presentation would be impossible. The quotations are of a length permitted by 'fair use'. I selected the empirical parts of these philosopher's works because these will always be of interest whereas their musings on various theories of mind may appear old fashioned in the context of modern science. A full discussion of each author would need a fifty page article and be mostly irrelevant to modern interests.

However, some readers may think that the whole piece sits awkwardly in the context of the lighter level of treatment in the rest of the article. I am very loathe to change anyone else's contributions and equally loathe to put the piece in a new article. This issue is in the hands of the editors but any discussion of consciousness must surely make reference to Descartes, Kant, Hume, Locke etc.

Electroneurobiological theories

I removed the following sentence after the paragraph on deep sleep. I have worked in this area for sometime and never heard of this theory. Does the author have a reference?

"This is a typical situation in which some electroneurobiological researchers see a change in time acuity or the ability to distinguish moments, assumed to arise from relativistic interval-dilation effects at work in brain biophysics."

27/09/04 OK, I've tracked down some original source material for this reference. This seems to be a very specific theory that is not universally accepted or publicised. My own feeling is that reference to this theory belongs in the next section next to "Quantum mind" and "space-time theories". Not being expert in this theory I am unsure of the level of supervenience being implied but I think it is direct so I have put in a link in the appropriate place.

Could the person who put in a reference to electroneurobiological theories complete a wikipedia section on this to complete the link?

27/09/04 I'm David <reardon@@operamail.com>, the guy who put it in; I'm on sabbatical in Buenos Aires. Thank you for your help; I'm to be blamed for not having surfaced before in this Discussion section. Deep sleep is no longer understood as a state lacking in mentation. On this topic there are several research papers, since the sixties, which after 2000 got multiplied. One might start with Nielsen, T. A., ?Cognition in REM and NREM sleep: A review and possible reconciliation of two models of sleep mentation,? and Solms, M. (2000), ?Dreaming and REM Sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms,? in the special issue (23, # 6, 2000) of Behavioral and Brain Sciences devoted to ?Sleep and Dreaming,? anticipated on line since December 1999. The paradigm shift caused by recognition of deep sleep mentation stirred a recent interest in electroneurobiological theories, chiefly developed outside the Anglo-American academe. This is why they aren't yet widely known, altho at least three major publishers in the States are currently wrestling to be the first in putting a full treatment in the book market. This muddles communications a bit and I resorted to the original propounders, the Argentine-German neurobiological school (or tradition). In the circumstances, I'll try to prepare a Misplaced Pages article about it, yet not before six or seven weeks. Meanwhile I'd leave the deep sleep mention as it stands, altho it no longer is entirely correct. The mention, "This is a typical situation in which some electroneurobiological researchers see a change in time acuity or the ability to distinguish moments, assumed to arise from relativistic interval-dilation effects at work in brain biophysics" seems me to solve the problem. However, I edited the new sentence added in the next section,because it mixed up electroneurobiology with electromagnetic theories of mind. The latter (eg the views of Susan Pockett of New Zealand or Pavel Ivanov of Moscow, all ultimately stemming from views akin to the Stoic view of aether) assume that mind supervenes upon electromagnetic patterns. The former rather assume such patterns to work upon other physical structures on which supervenience occurs, so that electroneurobiology is (part of) natural science by itself unconcerned with mind. I'll much appreciate any feed back.

27/09/04 I look forward to your article and feel that if this spreads ideas that are locked away in other languages it will be bang on target for Misplaced Pages. Something that troubles me is that if "electroneurobiology is (part of) natural science by itself unconcerned with mind" and mind is conscious experience then is electroneurobiology a part of the study of consciousness (ie: the nature of mind) or is it related to the non-conscious part of neural processing?

27/09/04 I've been only one month writing on it!  :-) Electroneurobiology, in what concerns us for this entry, studies the extramental processes that furnish mind with time acuity, or time resolution. Shrinking or dilating this acuity allows mind to present differently its own differentiations or mental contents. The object-conserving operations (remember Piaget) that define mental contents are allowed to be presented to oneself with more or, either, with less detail -like as you may write maths with tight, full equation-signifying signs (say, an asterisk for e=mc2) or either spelling out the equations themselves in boring detail. As I learnt in this place, this was observed by Aristotle. The attainable level of operative detail, it is said here, is controlled by electroneurobiological means, acts upon other physical means upon which minds react, and thereby enacts the differences in attention. The focus of attention displays mental contents in full operative detail, perceptual background does it in far less operational detail, dreamers "mentate" availing only of a still lesser amount of operatively "plenified" (akin to Einfüllung, a term by Husserl) mental contents and, progressing in disconnection, mentation in deep sleep or vegetative states is too much slow for extramental clocks to tell its states apart - altho the disconnected mind finds itself "mentating" with normal speed. This has been taught here for decades on a 250-year tradition with a series of "firsts", which published a paper on neurobiology and relativity in 1922, which Einstein visited for one month in 1925 (remember, they speak German), and which evolved quite apart, it seems, from everything.

Reversion to Early September 2004

The changes I made in September were not in line with the encyclopedic nature of Misplaced Pages and I do not have any more time to sort this out.

Andrew Cohen POV

The comment "Cohen has been working since 1986 toward a single goal: the transformation of human consciousness on a global scale" is somewhat PoV. I rewrote it as

Cohen has been working since 1986 towards what he calls "the transformation of human consciousness on a global scale".

Perhaps this comment should be removed altogether? --MatthewJ 21:09, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the whole section on Wilber is cranky, what is it doing here? Loxley 12:11, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Aroma of consciousness

                       '''Aroma of consciousness'''

“I know no more encouraging act of a man than to lift his life by conscious endeavor” (Socrates) In my view, states of consciousness represent unique configuration of physiological functions such as thought, memory, emotion, body image, visual & auditory perception etc. e.g. dream and meditative states and the ordinary state of reality. Structures of consciousness are broad noetic modes of experience by which we do understand our life’s world which have evidently evolved across human history that include archaic, magic, mythic, mental and emerging integral structures. Planes of consciousness represent broad perceptual/emotional horizons which in certain religions and traditions are said to define the quality of ones life’s world, both during and between incarnations. They are commonly called as the transitional states. I articulate them separately from noetic states of consciousness because there is a reason to believe that they present a different and more or less independent vector of life’s experience, one that is not determined by noetic structures. Their resilience across traditions however seems to lend an interdependence of ordinary physiological process that is not characteristic of states of consciousness. When I compare the humans body to its environment, I recognize the cosmos as the large infinite, and the atomic particles as the small infinite. The human brain reaches such a degree of complexity that it may be considered as a third infinite in the universe, a complex infinite. It follows that any force capable of moving such an infinite deserves a place among the forces of the universe. Physicists have recognized Four forces-The Gravitational force, The Electromagnetic, The Electrostatic & The Nuclear force. Forces are defined in four dimensions ( reversible or not in time) and it is postulated that these forces are applicable everywhere. Pleasure and displeasure, the affective axis of consciousness, can move the infinity complex axiomatically, that the affective capability of consciousness operates in a way similar to the way the four forces of physics: i.e. influences the behavior of conscious agents in a way similar to the way the four forces influence masses and particles. however, since a natural phenomenon is dimensionless, I suppose to call the affective capability of consciousness as the fifth influence rather than fifth force. Does life emerge spontaneously from a predetermined in animate back ground, or is it a basic characteristic of all of our environment? Living entities may respond to the external threatening stimuli in order to survive in a hostile climate . if we set aside the pre-supposition that inanimate and animate structures and agents are fundamentally different, then this criterion applies to all recognizable entities. An entity depends for its continuance not only on awareness of its surroundings, but also on self, referencing as a means of stabilizations. It must not only reflect external consciousness but also a degree of self consciousness. Uniquely external consciousness can engender incongruous or self destructive internal development; self consciousness can engender and leave the entity wide open to incomprehensible attack by external agents. the duel between these two facets constitutes the process we refer to as life. We can describe the natural living world as, and by, a non linearly scaled hierarchy of concepts, each of which maintains its autonomy by relying on its precursor as a tool. Life uses biology, biology uses chemistry and chemistry in turn uses quantum mechanics. I think that at the head of this hierarchy - The universe, background of casually chaotic communication, makes use of consciousness, which uses LIFE as a tool in its auto-propagation.

Irfan

"What are the inheritable characterisitics of intelligence? What are the correlations between intelligence and sex? Is intelligence affected by the geomagnetic field?"

It seems to me this part of the caption distracts from the article. These questions seem to have little to do with what is discussed here. Also, why is there a picture of a black hole? I think the picture and caption should be removed. Thoughts? Floorsheim 06:54, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I removed them. -- WOT 20:10, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Non-consciousness, absence of consciousness, subconscious

Although these terms may need to be defined the definitions placed in the introduction were incorrect. Absence of consciousness/non-consciousness are not types of consciousness. Loxley 10:02, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

A Wikiversity School of Consciousness Studies?

Any support for a School of Consciousness Studies over at the Wikiversity project? Or for expanding this thread into an Introduction to Consciousness Studies Textbook over at wikiBooks? I would be willing to devote some time towards writing introductory articles. Alistaircochrane 16:54, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I didn't know about Wikiversity until you mentioned it. Unfortunately the article has been listed for deletion. I see that the project itself is a part of Wikibooks accessed from its lefthand page menu. Sounds like an interesting idea. --Blainster 19:30, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OK, lets do it. I have put a Consciousness Studies template (click here) up at wikibooks Loxley 08:45, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Should QM approaches be included at this level?

There is an article called quantum mind that covers QM approaches to consciousness. Surely the main article 'consciousness' should point to this subsidiary article. I think we should delete the whole QM section from the consciousness article. loxley 22:49, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

That article is not very good, so we should probably merge. Rbarreira 23:20, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

On reflection I am in favour of replacing the QM Approaches section with a 'Physical Theories of Consciousness' section, including very short descriptions of global workspace theory, Edelman's ideas, QM, EM, Space-time etc. with links in each description. loxley 13:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Links

What are the standars for inclusion of links? What makes a link "poor" as stated by Encephalon? --Janice Rowe

Hello Janice,

The WP guide for external links is here. In general the section containing external links should be accessible to a wide audience, contain links that are directly focused on the subject of the article or specific subsections, are to bodies or organizations considered authoritative in that field where possible, are "high-content" and contain accurate, factual material, and preferably non-commercial. Personal websites are frowned upon (unless it is that of a notable person who is the subject of the article or a prominent subsection. To consider a recent featured article, Asthma, there are just 5 external links in a 35kb article; the links are all to national agencies widely considered to sources of accurate, evidence-based medical information, and all are non-commercial. There are no links to personal websites. Each link is to a page which is highly focused on the subject of the article, and they are all "high content". The article itself is heavily referenced directly to important primary and secondary studies directly pertaining to asthma.

I removed 5 links from this article's unnecessarily enormous links section.

• this contains a one line definition of the word consciousness. The parent website apparently belongs to an individual's religious school. There is nothing on the linked page that is not already more than adequately explained in the article, and other far more reputable sources.
• A commercial forum, seemingly devoted to an understanding of kinesiology more than anything else, focused on an individual of little relevance to the article, and not particularly a reliable or reputable as a source of scholarly or authoritative information on consciousness.
• The personal website of an individual who has written a book published by a vanity press. Claims to be scientific, but as it does not appear even to be referenced, I am unable to verify that claim beyond noting information that I seriously doubt underwent formal scientific peer-review.
• website on various religious beliefs loosely related to consciousness. Talks about "astral travel" and "energy bodies". Commercial. Unverified claims. I do not see how this contributes to a WP article on consciousness; perhaps an article on astral travel might be a better fit.
• I couldn't get this site to load properly and I wonder if it's still live. Cache seems to show part of it is in a foreign language; a personal website which seems to be itself a collection of links pointing to dozens of other places.

The links section of this article is already too large, and many of the links are unnecessary and/or poorly suited to WP; WP is not a "collection of external links," a "repository of links, images, or media files," a propaganda or advocacy" machine of any kind, or a venue for self-promotion or advertising. The Stanford encyclopedia links are excellent, the link to the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness is acceptable per WP guidelines, the links to the journals are strictly speaking not necessary, as papers of importance to the article should be directly referenced and placed in the references section (called Further reading here); however, if the editors felt they were useful to link to, I would not object, given their scholarly nature. The free journal might be particularly useful and in line with the WP policy of wide accesibility. The Koch lectures are an excellent multimedia resource. I am unsure if the Sobottka site adds much value. Do you feel I've removed a link that you would have preferred left in, Janice? Please let me know; if you feel strongly that I have erred, you may also place it back yourself, this being a wiki and all.

Kind regards—encephalonέγκέφαλος  21:52:12, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

NB. Disclosure— I played a significant editing role in Asthma, but used it as an example above only because I am familiar with it.—encephalonέγκέφαλος 

Thank you Encephalon for explaining this, and for taking the time to do so. I am just learning. What about the question below? --Janice Rowe

Don't mention it, Janice, glad to be of help. By the way, when Wikipedians sign their posts, it is customary to use four tildes, like so ~~~~. This produces your username, as well as the time/date stamp. If you type three tildes, only your username appears (I believe this is what you're typing). If you type five tildes, only the date/time stamp appears. Also, when writing posts, we tend to indent our responses one step to the right of the post we're replying to. This is done using colons. Each colon pushes the text in one pixel. If you click on the edit link for this section to your right, you'll see how it looks, I've done yours for you. Just in case you didn't know! :) All the best,—encephalonέγκέφαλος  22:25:16, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

Thanks again. Here ya go with four tildes, and indented with colons. --Janice Rowe 22:32, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Spiritual approaches

Why is the Spiritual approaches section tagged with a factual accuracy dispute? It says to look at the talk page, but there is no information about that challenge here. --Janice Rowe

Hi again Janice, I tagged it. It's actually not the most appropriate tag, but it may be the best available. I was looking for a clean-up or expert attention tag specific for a subsection, but it appears we don't have one. The reason I placed the tag is I believe that section needs a lot of work. It's entitled "Spiritual approaches," but lacks introductory remarks and has subsections entitled Buddhism, Yoga, Meditation, and Surat Shabda Yoga. This is remarkable both for the way it classifies spiritual approaches to consciousness as well as what I imagine must be its considerable incompleteness. The only major religious tradition given treatment is Buddhism. There are two separate sections on yoga(s), and one I believe may be a related form of the other. Aren't there numerous types of yogas? Is there a good reason Surat Shabda Yoga is being singled out for treatment? What about other spiritual traditions, both in the east, the west, Africa, etc? I am also not sure what to make of the entirely separate section called Integral approach. Finally, each of these things have just one or two lines of explanation, and no sources. I feel that section is an inaccurate portrayal of "Spiritual Approaches to Consciousness," and requires work. Best—encephalonέγκέφαλος  22:11:44, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

Going to make you my mentor now: is there a place in which you can find a list of all tags that can be used to alert other editors? Is there a bulleting board or wiki equivalent in which articles that need attention can be listed? --Janice Rowe 22:36, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Lol. Yes to all questions, Janice.

• Here is the page where you can find all commonly used templates: Misplaced Pages:Template. If you're interested in tags that are used for "clean-ups" (ie. various types of improvements), may I direct your attention to the box entitled Cleanup.
• There are whole teams of wikipedians whose main interest is in cleaning up articles. I understand some of them specialize in particular subjects. They hang around here a lot: Misplaced Pages:Cleanup. That's the place that lists articles an editor felt required sprucing up. It doesn't mean that everything gets attended to immediately though, especially if the problem is one which requires very specialized knowledge. If it's just prose and grammar and stuff it might get done quicker. The articles that you see on that page have just been added. The box on the right tells you what all these guys do. They're pretty awesome, and we're thankful for having them.

Well, hope that helped, Janice. You know my Talk page if you need anything. Cheers—encephalonέγκέφαλος  22:53:27, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

Thanks, έγκέφαλος, you are a gem. --Janice Rowe 22:58, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Dennettism

Dennett is a philosopher (not cognitive scientist) at the extreme end of modern opinion on consciousness. He appeals to computer programmers. He is an eliminativist and his idea is that you do not actually experience this text see: Multiple Drafts Model. He has been accused of being a living zombie by some philosophers. The fact that software engineers are probably more likely to read Misplaced Pages than anyone else should not lead us to give Dennett undue prominence, such as mentioning his ideas in the introduction. He believes that narrative (heterophenomenology) is the key to studying consciousness. By identifying qualia with judgements he ignores the spatial nature of mind, the way that the mind has many things simultaneously at any instant, and hence can propose that the brain is like a digital computer. loxley 08:33, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Philosophy of consciousness

It is important in this section to provide a smooth transit from the historical perspective to the modern. The way that Descartes considered conscious experience to be due to a soul that was an unextended point (res cogitans) viewing the contents of the brain in the common sense (senses communis) is crucial because it links Plato's idea of the 'mind's eye' and Reid's idea of the point soul viewing the world directly. The ideas of the unextended viewing point and the extended world (res extensa) that is viewed are very important in the history of this subject.

The use of the term experience of is usually a functionalist plant nowadays, deliberately distorting the discussion for the uninformed. This was realised as early as Aristotle who deprecated this and proposed that the mind was the things it thinks, not a point soul or reflexive loop.

The introduction of supervenience is also important because it asks that if consciousness is a thing then where is it?

The cutting of all these items by the 'real philosopher', leaving behind a modern functionalist text instead of a historical introduction is surprising to say the least. Real philosophers love the history of ideas. loxley 12:08, 1 October 2005 (UTC)