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Dear George,

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You wrote :

« So your preferred context is neuroscience, which is more or less the same as the biologist’s perspective that I assumed you preferred »

Please be assured that I have no personal preferences as to who should consider the study of consciousness as falling within his or her discipline. My approach is that of an open mind, void of any prejudices or pre-conceived ideas.

I simply look at the evidence and observe, for example, that Aristotle asserted that only humans had “rational souls”, while the “locomotive souls” shared by all animals, human and nonhuman, endowed animals with instincts suited to their successful reproduction and survival. Just as I observe that, two millennia later, Descartes' introduced the idea of a “reflex” to explain the behaviour of nonhuman animals. He apparently perceived animals as “reflex-driven machines”, with no intellectual capacities, and considered that this was sufficient to explain sensation and perception - aspects of animal behaviour we now associate with consciousness.

Also, as I observed in one of my previous posts, Darwin considered that earth worms possess cognitive faculties and consciousness because they have to make judgments about the kinds of leafy matter they use to block their tunnels. I also noted that the naturalists tell us that carnivorous plants demonstrate similar faculties.

It is evident that Kant and Freud also made important contributions to the study of consciousness, as did the biologists, Francis Crick and Gerald Edelman, the philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, the neurologist and philosopher Israel Rosenfield, and the distinguished mathematical physicist you kindly introduced me to, Roger Penrose.

It is not to deny the relevance and importance of any of these contributions, along with numerous others, to observe that, today, neuroscientists claim that “consciousness” is a biological problem. Their attitude has nothing to do with any preferences I might happen to have.

Quite frankly, I am quite indifferent as to which discipline takes the initiative of spearheading present or future research. Perhaps quantum physics has something interesting to say on the subject. I should be delighted if it did.

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« You and I are not entities »

An “entity” is something which “is”. It derives from the Latin “esse”: be. Perhaps it is best understood in the negative form: “nonentity”, which means “is not”, “not real”, “imaginary”.

I consider that you and I are part of what we call reality, real people, not fake people or imaginary people.

If we consider that we are not entities, then we are two nobodies talking about nothing. I imagine that, like me, you prefer to discuss something rather than nothing, as one real person with another.
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You add :

« Consciousness is an aspect of our very own nature and awareness is when we focus on specific objects »

In the sense that you employ the term, “nature” means “the innate or essential qualities or character of somebody or something”.

Awareness means “knowledge or perception of a situation or fact”. We can know something without necessarily having to “focus” on it and it does not have to be “specific objects”. It can be something immaterial such as information, for example.
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« Books have knowledge and information in them … »

Knowledge is acquired through a complex cognitive process of perception, communication, and reasoning. Books do not “have” knowledge in them. They contain symbolic graphic representations we call language which may be perceived, communicated and understood by an intelligent observer capable of interpreting them.
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« Your statement beginning with "All present-day life forms" assumes that life forms exist, but do they? We seem to be alive, but WHERE is this life? You cannot find it, no scientist ever has and no scientist ever will, for life is simply not in the form, any form »

The term “form”, in this context (“life forms”), does not refer to the notion of “shape”, “configuration” or “profile”, but designates a particular “type’ or “kind” (of life), its “special nature” or “distinguishing characteristics”.

Life is the self-sustaining process of the "life form".

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(Continued …)

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(Continued …)

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Life is neither matter nor energy nor some hypothetical supernatural element (such as a so-called “spirit” or “soul”, for example). It is a process, or an “animation” if you like, which we can easily observe and constantly do observe, every single day, right in front of our eyes.

The process is kick-started at conception and grinds to a halt when the vital organs that permit it to function wear out or suffer irremediable damage.

We just have to open our eyes to admire it in all its beauty.

Life, the splendour of nature !

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Dear Banjo,

Apologies for wrongly assuming that you thought consciousness is to be dealt with only in its biology/neuroscience context (your reference to earth worms, carnivorous plants etc made me think so). Some people think that the enigma should be approached first of all from the problem of Artificial Intelligence (quantum computers), others pose it as a primarily philosophical question, as you stated, etc.

Of course, since human consciousness “runs on human brains” (like a software can be useful only if running on some hardware), what neuroscience - or science in general - can find out about the working of the brain, is very much relevant here. Where we differ is that I do not share your belief/faith that this is all there is to consciousness (in view of all those marvels of human arts, science and philosophy).

However, I think we have again begun to go around in circles, so it is best to leave it at that

Dear Banjo,

What we do not focus our attention on - we do not know.

Formerly-perceived objects can leave impressions in our brain, which we call "memory". Memories are physical formations (or modifications) within our brain (some claim also within our mind, but this wouldn't change the situation in principle, so let's keep it simple and include "mind" as part-of-our-brain). Suppose we saw a tiger - still there is no tiger in our brain, only a particular formation of neurons and the like, so even when we focus on a piece of memory in our brain that represents a tiger, we have no actual knowledge of that tiger, only of the memory that was formed in its wake.

Memory is not limited to direct sensory input, but also includes the results of digesting that input and collating it with former pieces of information. The brain's digestive process includes the application of logic, in which case we call the resulting type of memory a 'conclusion'.

Brains evolved for the sake of preserving, sustaining and reproducing the organisms they control. They are quite good at it, but finding the truth was never on evolution's priority-list because philosophy or theology do not save an organism from a tiger or find it a mate. On the other hand, it can be analysed and understood why conclusions such as "I exist", "I am a person", "I am a body", "I am separate from others", "I am alive", etc., were favoured by evolution to become some of the most common digestive-products of the brain.

The brain is a mechanism and is objective like any other body-part. A brain could probably operate mechanically for years and even reproduce its organism without anyone being aware, neither of its sensory input nor of its memories/modifications, yet such a mode of operation does not deserve the name "life". Advanced computers, so I fear, will be able to do the same, thus behave as if they were alive, even order their fingers to type intelligent articles and responses in this forum, but that would never in fact bring them to life.

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Dear George,

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You wrote :

« Apologies for wrongly assuming that you thought consciousness is to be dealt with only in its biology/neuroscience context (your reference to earth worms, carnivorous plants etc made me think so) »

That’s OK, George. No harm done. Communication is not a solitary exercise and, whatever the endeavour, as soon as more than one person is involved, that’s when the incompréhensions, misinterpretations and misunderstandings creep in.

I cited earth worms and carnivorous plants as examples of animal and plant species that demonstrate a form of consciousness similar to that of human beings – just as domestic and industrial electronic robots are programmed to detect and react to their environment.

I consider that all these examples have a common denominator that is best described by the terms “awareness” and “consciousness”. They all demonstrate similar behavioural patterns, albeit on a vastly different scale in terms of autonomy and performance, ranging from very basic and rudimentary to highly complex and sophisticated.

You conclude :

« Where we differ is that I do not share your belief/faith that this is all there is to consciousness (in view of all those marvels of human arts, science and philosophy) »

My reference is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) which is generally regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. The OED defines “consciousness” as follows :

1. The state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings
2. A person's awareness or perception of something
2.1 The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world

I adopt this definition in the interest of precision and accuracy, not because of any particular belief or faith.

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