Three stages to consciousness

[coberst]

Three stages to consciousness

Suppose something happens that frightens me. My blood pressure goes up, my heart starts beating very fast, the release of adrenalin creates a great burst of energy, I may even jump or start to run. All of the feelings that are a result of these biological happenings reach my consciousness and I now know that I am afraid.

Many non human creatures have emotions—“human emotions however have evolved to making connections to complex ideas, values, principles, and judgments”—thus human emotion is special—the impact of feelings on humans is the result of consciousness—a distinct difference between feeling and knowing a feeling—“neither the emotion or the feeling caused by the emotion is conscious”—these things happen in a biological state—there are three stages here; emotion, feeling, and consciousness of feeling—consciousness must be present if feelings have an influence beyond the here and the now.

We need not be conscious of the emotion or the inducer of the emotion—we are about as effective in stopping an emotion as in stopping a sneeze.

“Emotions are about the life of an organism, its body to be precise, and their role is to assist the organism in maintaining life…emotions are biologically determined processes, depending upon innately set brain devices, laid down by long evolutionary history…The devices that produce emotions…are part of a set of structures that both regulate and represent body states…All devices can be engaged automatically, without conscious deliberation…The variety of the emotional responses is responsible for profound changes in both the body landscape and the brain landscape. The collection of these changes constitutes the substrate for the neural patterns which eventually become feelings of emotion.”

The biological function of emotions is to produce an automatic action in certain situations and to regulate the internal processes so that the creature is able to support the action dictated by the situation. The biological purpose of emotions are clear, they are not a luxury but a necessity for survival.

“It is through feelings, which are inwardly directed and private, that emotions, which are outwardly directed and public, begin their impact on the mind; but the full and lasting impact of feelings requires consciousness, because only along with the advent of a sense of self do feelings become known to the individual having them.”

Damasio proposes “that the term feeling should be reserve for the private, mental experience of an emotion, while the term emotion should be used to designate the collection of responses, many of which are publicly observable.” This means that while we can observe our own private feelings we cannot observe these same feelings in others.

Core consciousness—“occurs when the brain’s representation devices generate an imaged, nonverbal account of how the organism’s own state is affected by the organism’s processing of an object, and when this process enhances the image of the causative object, thus placing it saliently in a spatial and temporal context”

First, there is emotion, then comes feeling, then comes consciousness of feeling. There is no evidence that we are conscious of all our feelings, in fact evidence indicates that we are not conscious of all feelings.

Quotes from The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio

 

[Riva]

First, there is emotion, then comes feeling, then comes consciousness of feeling. There is no evidence that we are conscious of all our feelings, in fact evidence indicates that we are not conscious of all feelings.

Quotes from The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio

But we can learn to be aware of our feelings, emotions, thoughts etc

we can actually witness out feelings, emotions etc without reacting to them.

feelings beget more feelings, and thoughts and thoughts beget emotions and it gos on and on.

And the core goal of Buddhism is total awareness of your feelings without actually reacting to them.

That is done by a meditation called vippassana, taught by Buddha.

 

[Riva]

When you learn to witness your feelings without actually reacting to them (vippassana meditation) you slowly learn to become unmoved/ unattached by them.

This happens when you begin to realize that no thought, no feeling, no emotion is permanent. that they are all temporary things which governs you.

Blah blah blah

edit -

Once you realize that non of those feelings, emotions etc are permanent your emotions or feelings will stop controlling you.

You will control your emotions and feelings..

= Nirvana.

 

[redacted]

^The whole point is that you can't control your emotions or feelings because those are stages before conscious awareness. You can only "control" your conscious reaction to emotions and feelings.

Emotions and feelings are hardwired into our bodies...short of a lobotomy, they are impossible to fully suppress.

You can't, by definition, not react to emotions. You can not react to your conscious awareness, but that's not close to the same thing.

 

[Risen]

1. I cannot stop the urge to sneeze, but I can stop a sneeze quite effectively by blocking my nasal passages.

This methodology also applies to emotions and the unconscious, automatic, primal urgers that arise out of the primitive brain areas around the brain stem and in the midbrain. These areas of the brain relate to basic urges and bodily functions that keep us alive. They must be automated in order to keep things running smoothly. However, the human brain and all of our special cognitive abilities gives us unique "administrative" abilities within the brain and mind. Our highly developed forebrain and ability of metacognition are tools of consciousness that we can use to take conscious control of many brain functions. Control is often not achieved directly at the micro level (such as controling a neuron or directly controling a specific part of an organ), but rather exercising control at a macro system wide level. Consciously, one can do many things within the mind, and sub-sequentially the brain and body.

Our ability to exercise conscious control is through smoke and mirrors generated in the mind that can work to trigger the desired response in the brain/body. This is most evident with many buddhist monk meditation techniques where one may visualize in the mind something that is completely unrealistic, but it serves the purpose of generating real conscious control over certain brain/body processes indirectly. Much of this is not completely understood in psychology or neurology, but the mechanism is there. Our consciousness works as an interplay between conscious and automatic processes. On the continuum of states of consciousness it swings between the extremes conscious and unconscious/automatic.

Think of the brain as a windows computer with all of its hardware. The mind functions like computer programs, and the most "aware" aspects of our consciousness are analogous to the computer programmer. Only problem with this analogy is that the programmer is actually an integrated part of the computer itself, and the computer hardware can physically change from the actions of the computer programs and the programmer. But basically, the programmer uses programs on the computer that have already been set up and that keep the system running. When the programmer sees fit, he has the ability to create new programs that he can use or have run automatically in the background. The programmer uses his computer and all the programs on it to generate all sorts of new experiences, and essentially live life.

Again, let me state that urges cannot be controled. Urges can only be satisfied to remove the urge at the momment, or ignored through any number of means. Depending how you ignore an urge, it essentially ceases to exist (out of sight, out of mind). However, the parts of the brain that generate that urge will not stop putting out that signal (as far as I know, this process isn't scientifically proven, so I can only speak from an anecdotal perspective). The signal simply ceases to reach up to the level of conscious awareness. Thus, that urge and all of its related systems may continue running in the background, though you are not consciously aware of it.

For instance, you may be hungry/starving without any hope of getting food. Eventually you learn to ignore it (to an extent) because the sensation of it becomes old and is hindering you from working to go find more food. You keep yourself well distracted so that you neither think nor feel the hunger sensations. However, while you are busy ignoring the signals your hindbrain is trying to send to your conscious mind, it is sending signals to other parts of your brain that cannot ignore it, and is starting a cascade of events within the body that alter your hormone levels. This leads to you becoming tired, weak, and even alters your mood and ability to think. And thus, your state of hunger is brought back to your conscious awareness because the internal effects of your hunger are again altering your consciousness.

Consciously, you have little control over this except to focus on one aspect of your body if you know how, but it can't stop the entire process. But I am reminded of buddhist monks who are able to put their bodies into stasis and go without food for exceedingly longer than normal people would be able to without dying by consciously controlling the state of their mind and body, so it stands to reason that through learning one can control the system process by exercising control in the early stages/center of that process.

[YOUTUBE="R-wuOYlxMSY"]monks[/YOUTUBE]

But much of this ability of conscious control is obtained, again, through not just indirect control methods, but also a process of biofeedback which has been studied and applied in many related fields. There all all sorts of subtle feedback mechanisms that the mind can use to gain conscious control and awareness of neurological/bodily functions.

 

[redacted]

I hear what you're saying, I just think your computer analogy needs to be slightly revised. The computer programmer does not at all have access to the code running in most of the programs on the computer itself. So he can't see the code itself, he can only see the input/output relations and make inferences about what the code might look like. He can write all sorts of programs to automatically deal with hypotheses about what all the other programs do, but he has nowhere near enough information to do the inverse of what certain programs are doing (to cancel it out).

All of the programs on the computer all interacting with each other forms an extremely complex system -- trying to infer the code is an incredibly underconstrained inverse problem. Not only that, but we have a finite amount of processing power to even write new programs, and we might have to spend years and years of effort everyday to even begin to get accurate about what the other programs do. In fact, most people have no idea what the fuck is going on inside themselves.

I do think some monks are among the best self-programmers in the world, but think about how much effort that has taken them. And was it really worth it? To write programs to suppress the body's natural response to all sorts of emotional urges? Being able to choose which impulses to act on has a lagtime, which itself has a cost. I don't know if that's a goal I would ever want to define for myself.

I do think it's important to write your own code -- I do it all the time. But each moment you spend on writing code to counteract emotional responses has the opportunity cost of writing code for something else.

My philosophy is to go about life coding myself, but constantly reassessing the marginal utility of the programming project I'm working on in comparison to other possible projects.

Anyway, I doubt you disagree with me much. I just wanted to add to your metaphor.

 

[Risen]

I hear what you're saying, I just think your computer analogy needs to be slightly revised. The computer programmer does not at all have access to the code running in most of the programs on the computer itself. So he can't see the code itself, he can only see the input/output relations and make inferences about what the code might look like. He can write all sorts of programs to automatically deal with hypotheses about what all the other programs do, but he has nowhere near enough information to do the inverse of what certain programs are doing (to cancel it out).

Yes, and the programmers limitations is directly analogous to how the conscious mind's ability to interact with and manipulate the whole system is limited. He can't see the workings of his brain, but he can infer through various feedback mechanisms and exercise control in an indirect manner. I believe that scientifically defining how the system works may also open a door to another method of conscious control mainly through imagining the system as it is scientifically defined and manipulating it in your mind's eye. Same methodology a monk would use in meditation with visualization, but from a different angle/perspective.

All of the programs on the computer all interacting with each other forms an extremely complex system -- trying to infer the code is an incredibly underconstrained inverse problem. Not only that, but we have a finite amount of processing power to even write new programs, and we might have to spend years and years of effort everyday to even begin to get accurate about what the other programs do. In fact, most people have no idea what the fuck is going on inside themselves.

I do think some monks are among the best self-programmers in the world, but think about how much effort that has taken them. And was it really worth it? To write programs to suppress the body's natural response to all sorts of emotional urges? Being able to choose which impulses to act on has a lagtime, which itself has a cost. I don't know if that's a goal I would ever want to define for myself.

I do think it's important to write your own code -- I do it all the time. But each moment you spend on writing code to counteract emotional responses has the opportunity cost of writing code for something else.

My philosophy is to go about life coding myself, but constantly reassessing the marginal utility of the programming project I'm working on in comparison to other possible projects.

Anyway, I doubt you disagree with me much. I just wanted to add to your metaphor.

Yea, well the big issue here is that most people simply don't care to tap into this potential. To me, it is fascinating. the idea that, with all of the insight that science has given us, it shows us that the reality we experience reality is largely seated within our brain, for without it, there is no consciousness or perception of anything. To scientists, there is no soul, only our flesh and living consciousness. By looking at what we can do with our own conscious abilities, it fascinates me to no end how we can nearly act as God over the core of our very own existence (from the science perspective).

 

[Poki]

I hear what you're saying, I just think your computer analogy needs to be slightly revised. The computer programmer does not at all have access to the code running in most of the programs on the computer itself. So he can't see the code itself, he can only see the input/output relations and make inferences about what the code might look like. He can write all sorts of programs to automatically deal with hypotheses about what all the other programs do, but he has nowhere near enough information to do the inverse of what certain programs are doing (to cancel it out).

You have yet to meet an ISTp computer programmer I have reverse engineered programs so I can either imitate, intercept and redirect, or modify it.

 

[redacted]

Yes, and the programmers limitations is directly analogous to how the conscious mind's ability to interact with and manipulate the whole system is limited. He can't see the workings of his brain, but he can infer through various feedback mechanisms and exercise control in an indirect manner. I believe that scientifically defining how the system works may also open a door to another method of conscious control mainly through imagining the system as it is scientifically defined and manipulating it in your mind's eye. Same methodology a monk would use in meditation with visualization, but from a different angle/perspective.



Yea, well the big issue here is that most people simply don't care to tap into this potential. To me, it is fascinating. the idea that, with all of the insight that science has given us, it shows us that the reality we experience reality is largely seated within our brain, for without it, there is no consciousness or perception of anything. To scientists, there is no soul, only our flesh and living consciousness. By looking at what we can do with our own conscious abilities, it fascinates me to no end how we can nearly act as God over the core of our very own existence (from the science perspective).

Agreed.

 

[Poki]

Yes, and the programmers limitations is directly analogous to how the conscious mind's ability to interact with and manipulate the whole system is limited. He can't see the workings of his brain, but he can infer through various feedback mechanisms and exercise control in an indirect manner. I believe that scientifically defining how the system works may also open a door to another method of conscious control mainly through imagining the system as it is scientifically defined and manipulating it in your mind's eye. Same methodology a monk would use in meditation with visualization, but from a different angle/perspective.



Yea, well the big issue here is that most people simply don't care to tap into this potential. To me, it is fascinating. the idea that, with all of the insight that science has given us, it shows us that the reality we experience reality is largely seated within our brain, for without it, there is no consciousness or perception of anything. To scientists, there is no soul, only our flesh and living consciousness. By looking at what we can do with our own conscious abilities, it fascinates me to no end how we can nearly act as God over the core of our very own existence (from the science perspective).

You sitting here in your own body, figure out what it can do. Leave it to an INTP to wait for a manual or someone else to tell them how they work.

 

[Risen]

You sitting here in your own body, figure out what it can do. Leave it to an INTP to wait for a manual or someone else to tell them how they work.

You can only exercise control by having the right feedback. Normal people, like you, have the normal level of conscious control, over bodily functions that has been cultivated by the environment you live in and the needs it has created. Going beyond this takes skill. To do something with your mind, and then be able to somehow measure what effect you had is quite another matter. Then there's also the aspect of your mind imagining the said effects, which can either become physical reality within your own brain and body, or goes nowhere because it is all imagined perception or you are not actually perceiving what you think you are. You must develop an understanding of the whole process, though that understanding can come from varying perspectives (religious explanation vs. scientific explanation). Either way, you can reach the same sort of results when it comes to conscious control of mental and physical processes.

Using a scientific model is just one way of going about it, and my proffered method, because I am a scientifically oriented person who likes to rely on such facts to solidify my beliefs and view of reality. When it comes to using the mind to control anything, it requires a conscious belief in the mind that what you are doing is reality in order to exercise that conscious control. The brain as a whole likely perceives everything it generates (thoughts, dreams, whatever) to be reality, but it is the interaction between parts of the brain that generate conscious cognition that eventually comes to define what the reality really is. It's all complex.

 

[Poki]

You can only exercise control by having the right feedback. Normal people, like you, have the normal level of conscious control, over bodily functions that has been cultivated by the environment you live in and the needs it has created. Going beyond this takes skill. To do something with your mind, and then be able to somehow measure what effect you had is quite another matter. Then there's also the aspect of your mind imagining the said effects, which can either become physical reality within your own brain and body, or goes nowhere because it is all imagined perception or you are not actually perceiving what you think you are. You must develop an understanding of the whole process, though that understanding can come from varying perspectives (religious explanation vs. scientific explanation). Either way, you can reach the same sort of results when it comes to conscious control of mental and physical processes.

Using a scientific model is just one way of going about it, and my proffered method, because I am a scientifically oriented person who likes to rely on such facts to solidify my beliefs and view of reality. When it comes to using the mind to control anything, it requires a conscious belief in the mind that what you are doing is reality in order to exercise that conscious control. The brain as a whole likely perceives everything it generates (thoughts, dreams, whatever) to be reality, but it is the interaction between parts of the brain that generate conscious cognition that eventually comes to define what the reality really is. It's all complex.

I know, I used to be a heavy sleeper until my son was born and I trained myself to become a light sleeper. I have also got to the point where my sleep can be so light at times I am aware I am dreaming and can take over my dream to an extent because I know its a dream. I have found a way to tap into part of my other functions because I have never been able to day dream. If I had the time to figure it out more I could probably bring it into day dreaming, but the real world gets in the way. Se is a wonderful tool that allows you to fully experience right now, what is real.

 

[coberst]

Ego says, HOLD IT, TIME OUT!

The ego is our command center; it is the “internal gyroscope” and creator of time for the human. It controls the individual; especially it controls individual’s response to the external environment. It keeps the individual independent from the environment by giving the individual time to think before acting. It is the device that other animal do not have and thus they instinctively respond immediately to the world.

The id is our animal self. It is the human without the ego control center. The id is reactive life and the ego changes that reactive life into delayed thoughtful life. The ego is also the timer that provides us with a sense of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. By doing so it makes us into philosophical beings conscious of our self as being separate from the ‘other’ and placed in a river of time with a terminal point—death. This time creation allows us to become creatures responding to symbolic reality that we alone create.

As a result of the id there is a “me” to which everything has a focus of being. The most important job the ego has is to control anxiety that paradoxically the ego has created. With a sense of time there comes a sense of termination and with this sense of death comes anxiety that the ego embraces and gives the “me” time to consider how not to have to encounter anxiety.

Evidence indicates that there is an “intrinsic symbolic process” is some primates. Such animals may be able to create in memory other events that are not presently going on. “But intrinsic symbolization is not enough. In order to become a social act, the symbol must be joined to some extrinsic mode; there must exist an external graphic mode to convey what the individual has to express…but it also shows how separate are the worlds we live in, unless we join our inner apprehensions to those of others by means of socially agreed symbols.”

“What they needed for a true ego was a symbolic rallying point, a personal and social symbol—an “I”, in order to thoroughly unjumble himself from his world the animal must have a precise designation of himself. The “I”, in a word, has to take shape linguistically…the self (or ego) is largely a verbal edifice…The ego thus builds up a world in which it can act with equanimity, largely by naming names.” The primate may have a brain large enough for “me” but it must go a step further that requires linguistic ability that permits an “I” that can develop controlled symbols with “which to put some distance between him and immediate internal and external experience.”

I conclude from this that many primates have the brain that is large enough to be human but in the process of evolution the biological apparatus that makes speech possible was the catalyst that led to the modern human species. The ability to emit more sophisticated sounds was the stepping stone to the evolution of wo/man. This ability to control the vocal sounds promoted the development of the human brain.

Ideas and quotes from Birth and Death of Meaning—Ernest Becker

 

[The Decline]

Our consciousness and bodily functions are composed of a series of mechanisms that are interconnected, yet function on their own simultaneously. At the most basic levels, there are mechanical, reflexive reactions made by control centers that are used to mundane activities that do not require conscious effort to maintain. At the other end of the spectrum, there is the inner control center for our conscious decision making and analyzing mind, which you may consider the self.

A good analogy for this would be operating a car. While driving along the road, rarely do you need to put much conscious effort into maintaining a steady course. The muscle memory pretty much takes over on autopilot, and your mind will be working on other things. However, if a cat should wander into the road in front of you unexpectedly, your conscious center will require intervening action. Should you swerve and take the risk of harming yourself in order to save the cat? Should you hit the brakes and hope you don't hit it? Should you not take any risks? These are all value judgments that your self must consider, and the call to action will ultimately be passed down to the lower levels of physical operators who will carry out the order.

The emotional and instinctual reflexes are rather ingrained in ourselves, and I believe they are somewhere in between the most basic and the self in this spectrum. Of course we can consciously exert control and guidance to how they will act, but they are passive forces which we have inherited from our ancestors. Some philosophers have noted that the newborn baby grasps and struggles against the world before it has any idea of what it looks like, before it can analyze and work that consideration into its next move. I believe our consciousness, which is quite clearly a notable and superior trait we have over other animals, is an advanced guidance center which can train and control these instincts during crucial moral, ethical, and value situations. Of course, do not think that these inherent instincts are extremely flawed and detrimental to progress, since they've carried us here thus far.